Court Opinion

ID: 9530475
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:00:07.663424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:07.333396
License: Public Domain

GARRARD, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
Obscenity cases generate highly emotional public reactions. Acts of censorship evoke grave concern among people devoted to a viable democratic society. While these problems underlie our problem today, they are only tangentially involved in the question we must decide. It has been clearly decided that obscene material is not protected by the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment. Miller v. California *257(1973), 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419. However, despite numerous efforts, precision in the yardstick of definition has eluded us. Our courts have recognized that while “obscenity” is limited to representations or descriptions of certain forms of sexual conduct, the conclusion that a particular piece of material is obscene varies in the context in which the sexual expression appears and may also vary with the time and place in which it is considered. Miller, supra. With these determinations I voice no quarrel.
What we are asked to do today is affirm a criminal conviction of the appellant Ford for distributing obscene materials. Upon that conviction he was fined ten thousand dollars ($10,000).1 The statute under which he was prosecuted tracks the language of the majority in Miller. 1 agree that it provides a constitutionally permissible basis for deciding that material is obscene in the face of a free speech challenge.2
I have personally cherished the notion that before our government could successfully prosecute a citizen for the commission of a crime there must be in force a statute from which the defendant, had he been interested and of average intelligence, could have ascertained he was about to commit a criminal act. Numerous decisions have applied that principle as one of the bulwarks upon which democracy survives. See, e. g., Grody v. State (1972), 257 Ind. 651, 278 N.E.2d 280; note, 23 Ind.L.J. 272.
An examination of the Indiana statute’s acceptability pursuant to this fundamental requirement of due process need lead no further than the first element. A matter or performance is “obscene” if:
“(1) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, finds that the dominant theme of the matter or performance, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in sex.” IC 35-30— 10.1-l(c)
Were I to examine that definition to gauge my activity as a bookseller, there are questions I should like to ask: What community? Who or what establishes a standard for the community? Can material appeal to prurient interest of an average person, or is such appeal strictly subjective?3 When is the interest in sex prurient? How does one determine that prurient interest in sex is the dominant theme or merely a subsidiary aspect?4
One answer is that the distributor or would-be distributor may avoid offending *258the statute by refusing all materials containing descriptions or depictions of sexual conduct of the varieties enumerated in the statute.5 This, of course, represents an unconstitutional burden upon free speech with which the cases are concerned.
Secondly, one might avoid materials once a court of competent jurisdiction has properly declared them obscene. This was the recommendation of the Committee on Obscenity and Pornography. See Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (1970), p. 63. It also provided the substance for Mr. Justice Douglas’ dissent in Miller. 413 U.S. at 38, 93 S.Ct. 2622. However, that is not required by our statute nor is it present in the case before us.6
I believe the practical consequence of the statute is to create a community of the twelve seated in the box and permit their standards to largely determine ex post fac-to whether material is obscene.
On the factual determinations involved, their results will be largely insulated by traditional standards of appellate review. Compare, e. g., Cuffel v. State (1966), 247 Ind. 357, 215 N.E.2d 36 holding Tropic of Cancer not obscene upon the basis of Grove Press, Inc. v. Gerstein (1964), 378 U.S. 577, 84 S.Ct. 1909, 12 L.Ed.2d 1035. But see Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), 378 U.S. 184, 83 S.Ct. 28, 9 L.Ed.2d 52.
The truthful answer is that the average person with only the language of IC 35-30-10.1-1 et seq. to guide him cannot determine with any confidence beforehand what conduct on his part is prohibited and what is permitted in delivering material depicting or describing sexual acts. For this reason the statute is void for vagueness, and the conviction should be reversed.

. To this could have been added six (6) months’ imprisonment. IC 35-30-10.1-7 (Repealed). Present law would limit the fine to $5,000 but permits imprisonment for up to one (1) year. IC 35-50-3-2.

. I do so despite the vagueness of the term “community” as employed in the statute. No attempt to define that term was made in Ford’s trial. However, aside from due process and equal protection arguments I believe Art. 4, Sec. 22 of the Indiana constitution requires that the community consist of the entire state. I also believe that judicial interpretation would be proper to apply that definition and save the statute from vagueness on that particular ground. Cf. IC 35-30-10.1-8 referring to the statute’s statewide application.

. The state’s sole witness on this aspect of the case, an experienced police officer, provides illuminating testimony:
“Q. I think you said that the book aroused you sexually?
A. Not me, no.
Q. The book did not arouse you sexually?
A. Well, not to me personally it didn’t. No. From what I know as being aroused, no.
Q. Isn’t that what appealing to your prurient interests means from what we discussed before?
A. Well, to me, I am under the impression that prurient interest is lustfully — and I think there is a difference between lustfully and the type of arousal that most of us are—
Q. When you saw this book did you feel lustful?
A. It gives you that feeling, yes.
Q. Did it give you that feeling?
A. I can’t really say.
Q. Well, that is what you are here for.
A. Well, yes and no.”

.If the statutory standards are not vague, then it would appear that a newspaper or magazine could easily be liable as a principal under Indiana’s general accessory statute if it carried an advertisement for a book dealer or movie thea-tre which distributed obscene material. IC 35-41-2^1 provides that “[a] person who knowingly or intentionally aids . . . another person to commit an offense commits that offense . .” The offense proscribed by IC 35-30-10.1-2 is distributing, offering to distribute or exhibiting obscene matter.

. Acts of sexual intercourse, sodomy, exhibition of uncovered genitals in the context of masturbation or other sexual activity or sadomasochistic abuse. IC 35-30-10.1-l(d), (e).

. IC 35-30-10.1-6 which provides for a preliminary determination of obscenity does not eliminate the defect since it allows prosecution for distribution of the specific exhibit used in the probable cause determination.