Court Opinion

ID: 9423184
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:06:20.436096+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:42.627803
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
dissenting.
The appellant was sentenced to three years in prison for publishing numerous books. However tawdry those books may be, they are not hard-core pornography, and their publication is, therefore, protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Ginzburg v. United States, ante, p. 497 (dissenting opinion). The judgment should be reversed.*

See Ginzburg v. United States, ante, p. 497, at 499, note 3 (dissenting opinion). Moreover, there was no evidence at all that any of the books are the equivalent of hard-core pornography in the eyes of any particularized group of readers. Cf. United States v. Klaw, 350 F. 2d 155 (C. A. 2d Cir.).
Although the New York Court of Appeals has purported to interpret § 1141 to cover only what it calls “hard-core pornography,” this case makes abundantly clear that that phrase has by no means been limited in New York to the clearly identifiable and distinct class of material I have described in Ginzburg v. United States, ante, p. 497, at 499, note 3 (dissenting opinion).