Court Opinion

ID: 9425956
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:16.590085+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.320455
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Stewart and Mr. Justice Marshall join,
dissenting.
Appellants challenged the constitutionality of the Maryland motion picture censorship statute, Md. Ann. Code, Art. 66A, §§ 1-26 (1970), which requires that films be licensed before exhibition and forbids the licensing of obscene films. Pursuant to § 6 (b) of the statute a film is “obscene” if, “when considered as a whole, its calculated purpose or dominant effect is substantially to arouse sexual desires, and if the probability of this effect is so great as to outweigh whatever other merits the film may possess.” A three-judge court ruled adversely to appellant, and this Court vacated the judgment and remanded the case for further consideration in light of Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15 (1973), and companion cases. 413 U. S. 905. The three-judge court again upheld the statute.
It is my view that “at least in the absence of distribution to juveniles or obtrusive exposure to unconsenting adults, the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit *958the State and Federal Governments from attempting wholly to suppress sexually oriented materials on the basis of their allegedly ‘obscene’ contents.” Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U. S. 49, 113 (1973) (Brennan, J., dissenting).
It is clear that, tested by that constitutional standard, the Maryland motion picture censorship statute, as it defines “obscene” in § 6 (b), is constitutionally overbroad and therefore invalid on its face. For the reasons stated in my dissent in Miller v. California, supra, at 47, and because the judgment of the three-judge court was rendered after Miller, I would therefore reverse. In that circumstance, I have no occasion to consider whether the other questions presented merit plenary review. See Heller v. New York, 413 U. S. 483, 494 (1973) (Brennan, J., dissenting).