Court Opinion

ID: 9565017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:13:12.67553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:19.365901
License: Public Domain

Mobley, Justice,
concurring in the judgment. I concur m the judgment of the court but not for the reason given in the majority opinion. In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 571-72 (62 SC 766, 86 LE 1031), the court held that “there are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or 'fighting’ words — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” *794The enumerated classes of speech are not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 485 (77 SC 1304, 1 LE2d 1498). It is not only the privilege but the duty of the City of Atlanta to protect its people against the dangers of obscenity in the public exhibition of motion pictures and in other classes of speech which are not protected. I do not agree that regardless of the extent of such evil, previous restraint cannot be justified. As pointed out in Times Film Corp. v. Chicago, 365 U.S. 43, 49-50 (81 SC 391, 5 LE2d 403), the Supreme Court of the United States recognized in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (72 SC 777, 96 LE 1098) that “ ‘capacity for evil . . . may be relevant in determining the permissible scope of community control,’ at p. 502, and that motion pictures were not ‘necessarily subject to the precise rules governing any other particular method of expression. Each method,’ we said, ‘tends to present its own peculiar problems.’ At 503. Certainly petitioner’s broadside attack does not warrant, nor could it justify on the record here, our saying that — aside from any consideration of the other ‘exceptional cases’ mentioned in our decisions — the State is stripped of all constitutional power to prevent, in the most effective fashion, the utterance of this class of speech.”
It is in my opinion a reasonable exercise of the police power of the State to require that motion pictures be submitted to a board of censors prior to their showing so that those which are obscene or otherwise within that class of speech not protected by the Constitution may be barred from showing. However, the charter amendment, Ga. L. 1915, p. 493, and the ordinances adopted pursuant thereto go beyond this, as the Board of Censors is empowered to prohibit the display of any picture without a permit from that Board and they may reject any picture or scene which would in their judgment affect the peace, health, morals and good order of the city. Under the charter amendment, the board is authorized to reject not just those pictures which “adversely” affect the peace, health, etc. of the people, but also those which might have a beneficial effect. They may not constitutionally prohibit the showing of any pictures except those which come within one of the classes of speech not within *795the protection of the free speech provision of the Constitution. Furthermore, the General Assembly has not prescribed clear and definite procedure to guide the action of the city in the performance of the power granted as is required, to meet the due process clauses of the Federal and State Constitutions. See City of Atlanta v. Southern Ry. Co., 213 Ga. 736, 738 (101 SE2d 707). I am authorized to state that Quillian, Justice, concurs in this opinion.