Court Opinion

ID: 9559555
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:31:11.248147+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:22.095074
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. Addressing first the issue of scienter, it is constitutionally impermissible to construe and apply an anti-obscenity statute so as to hold a defendant strictly liable for prohibited activity regardless of his lack of knowledge of the character of the materials he possesses and sells. The United States Constitution as interpreted in Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147, 80 S.Ct. 215, 4 L.Ed.2d 205 (1959), will not tolerate such a restriction on the freedom of the press. The Utah Legislature has spoken definitively in regard to the particular mental state required. Utah *1115Code Ann., Sec. 76-10-1204 states “A person is guilty of distributing pornographic material when he knowingly engages in the proscribed activities of distributing pornographic material.” (Emphasis added.) Section 76-10-1201(4) defines “knowingly” as “an awareness, whether actual or constructive, of the character of material . . .” Thus, defendants are correct in their assertion that scienter is a constitutionally and statutorily required element of the crime of which they were convicted.
Defendants, however, failed to take exception to the omission in the jury instructions of the element of scienter or to submit instructions that would cure the defect. As announced in State v. Kazda, 545 P.2d 190 (Utah 1976):
[T]he standard rule is that when a party fails to make a proper objection to an erroneous instruction, or to present to the court a proper request to supply any claimed deficiency in the instructions, he is thereafter precluded from contending error.
The purpose of this rule, of course, is to provide the trial court with an opportunity to correct any defects in its instructions in. time for the jury to deliberate properly on the matter.
An error in jury instructions may result in reversal regardless of the party’s failure to object, however, if the error is so obvious and prejudicial that it would amount to a denial of due process. State v. Villiard, 27 Utah 2d 204, 494 P.2d 285 (1972). It must therefore be determined whether the error in this case was such as to require reversal.
The State has presented an argument that the jury instructions in this case, when taken as a whole, did sufficiently apprise the jury that scienter was a requisite element of the offense with which defendants were charged. Instructions four, five, and six, concerning Defendants Richardson, Lee, and Cleveland, contained no reference to the requisite element of scienter. Instructions eight and nine, however, concerning Defendants Pauly and International Amusements, dba Adult Book and Cinema Store, stated that a verdict of guilty could only be reached if it were found that the Defendant “knew or should have known that such a book was displayed for sale ..” Additionally, instruction ten stated:
You are instructed that every person acting with the mental state for the conduct of this offense who directly commits the offense, or who solicits, requests commands, encourages, or intentionally aids . shall be liable for such conduct. [Emphasis added.]
Furthermore, although not part of the jury instructions, the Trial Court during voir dire pointed out to the jury, in an explanation of principal-agent liability:
[I]f A employs B to commit a crime on behalf of C, they would all be liable if they had the same criminal intent and that is what they are charging here. But you would not be liable unless you intended the commission of the crime charged. [Emphasis added.]
Defendants Pauly and International Amusements argue that the knowledge called for by instructions eight and nine relates to the book’s being displayed for sale rather than to the nature of the content of the book. Since the instruction refers to “such a book” and goes on to define when a book constitutes illegal pornography, there is little doubt that the knowledge requirement can fairly be understood to apply to the character of the book, as required. Though a clearer instruction on scienter would be preferable, it cannot be said that the court erred in instructions eight and nine.
As to Defendants Richardson, Lee, and Cleveland, however, I do not believe that the handful of references to “mental state” found when examining the instructions as a whole is sufficient to ensure that said defendants were not denied due process of law. Perhaps under other circumstances the Court’s error in failing to instruct on a particular element of crime could be mitigated or eliminated by such corrective references. Because the error in this case impinges on the rights of free speech,1 however, I hesitate to merely infer that the *1116jury correctly understood the requisite elements of the crime. On this matter of scienter, I believe it must explicitly be brought to the jury’s attention that a defendant cannot be found guilty unless . .he knowingly engages in . . distributing pornographic material”.
The second issue raised by defendants on appeal is whether or not the jury should have been instructed that statewide contemporary community standards were to be used in evaluating the materials. In Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973), the United States Supreme Court indicated that a nationwide standard was not constitutionally required, and it approved the statewide standard applied in California. In Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 94 S.Ct. 2887, 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974) and in Jenkins v. Georgia, 418 U.S. 153, 94 S.Ct. 2750, 41 L.Ed.2d 642 (1974), the Court made clear that Miller did not require a statewide standard to be applied, and it left to the states the ultimate decision as to what “community” standards should be used to evaluate allegedly obscene materials. The Court also expressly approved of the trial court’s instructions in Jenkins, which directed the jurors to apply “community” standards without having specified the “community” in precise geographical terms.
Utah Code Ann., Sec. 76-10-1201(12) defines contemporary community standards as “those current standards in the vicinage where an offense alleged under this act has occurred . . .” and the District Court closely adhered to this definition in instructing the jury. This Court is called upon, for the first time in this State, to determine if “community” or “vicinage”, must be interpreted to refer to the state as a whole. As mentioned above, the U.S. Supreme Court does not mandate such an interpretation. The Utah Constitution, however, in Article I, Sec. 24, states that “all laws of a general nature shall have uniform operation.” The laws enacted by the Utah State Legislature to prohibit the distributing of pornographic and other harmful materials are surely “of a general nature”, no less or more so in one part of the State than in another. Therefore the effect to be given these laws must be uniform throughout the State. To convict a defendant of distributing pornographic materials in one part of the State by applying strict local community standards while acquitting a similar defendant in another part of the State because more lenient community standards prevailed would constitute a denial of equal protection of law. Therefore, I believe that the “contemporary community standards” to be applied, in determining whether the average person would deem the material in question pornographic, should be statewide in scope.
The third issue raised by defendants is whether the District Court erred in instructing the jury to consider children in evaluating the conscience of the community, which instruction stated:
In this case . . . you are the exclusive judges of what the common conscience of the community is, and in determining that conscience you are to consider the community as a whole, young and old, educated and uneducated, the religious and the irreligious men, women and children.
Utah Code Ann., Sec. 76-10-1203(2) (Supp.1975) provides:
In any prosecution dealing with an offense relating to pornographic material . the question whether material . appeals to prurient interest in sex shall be determined with reference to average adults or average minors as the case may be. [Emphasis added.]
The State argues that this language can be read to include children in the determination of the “average person” to be affected by the material. This misinterprets the statute, which indicates rather that where materials are made available to minors their impact on the “average minor” is to be evaluated. There is no evidence in the record that the materials here involved were made available to minors. If the jury did consider the impact of the material on children as well as on adults, it is clear that a finding that the material was pornographic could be reached much more readily *1117than if its impact on adults alone was considered.2 I cannot say that such an error was harmless.
This case should therefore be reversed and remanded for a new trial.
MAUGHAN, Justice, concurs in Justice WILKINS’ dissent.

. Utah Const., Art. I, Sec. 1; U.S.Const., Amend. I.

. Our statute, § 76-10-1203(2), supra, recognizes a distinction between adults and minors concerning what “appeals to prurient interest in sex”. The United States Supreme Court— and other courts—recognize along this vein that minors may be'accorded a more restricted right than adults to judge what material they may read or see. See Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 88 S.Ct. 1274, 20 L.Ed.2d 195 (1968); Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 95 S.Ct. 2268, 45 L.Ed.2d 125 (1975); and State v. Seigel, 139 N.J.Super. 373, 354 A.2d 103 (1975).