Court Opinion

ID: 9452186
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:32:36.219753+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:06.374019
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM HAROLD COX,* United States District Judge
(dissenting).
Impelled to the conclusion that Dallas Ordinance No. 11284 on its face violates the First Amendment Rights of these motion picture exhibitors, I would reverse the decision of the trial court on direct and cross appeal; and respectfully dissent from the majority to the contrary.
It is no longer debatable that motion pictures enjoy the protection of free speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Jacobellis v. State of Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 84 S.Ct. 1676, says: “Motion pictures are within the ambit of the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495, 72 S.Ct. 777, 96 L.Ed. 1098. But in Roth v. U. S. and Alberts v. California, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498, we held that obscenity is not subject to those guarantees.” 1
*609It has not been intimated in any authoritative decision that such vested First Amendment rights may be dissipated by anything short of obscenity in such material as that term is defined by several decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. It is not sufficient that a motion picture be objectionable or even odious and obnoxious in part, but the picture must be utterly without redeeming social value. The standard must be that of an average person, not on a community or state basis, but on a national basis in measuring First Amendment rights under the Constitution of the United States. Jacobellis, supra, says: “[T]hat the constitutional status of an allegedly obscene work must be determined on the basis of a national standard. It is, after all, a national Constitution we are expounding.”
But this Dallas ordinance says nothing about obscenity, and the trial judge gave it a helpful nudge in that direction to provide the basis for the cross appeal here. But the Court could not by its proviso give, or ascribe to the ordinance something not said or to be found therein.
There is, indeed, sound basis in dicta found in many respected cases to the effect that states may take a critical look at pictures designed for viewing by young people under sixteen years of age, in the instant case; and that they may supervise such showings to see that these young minds are not polluted by any filth which is utterly without any redeeming social value or importance as determined by an average person on a national basis. That is the basic teaching of the landmark decision of Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304. That decision has been amplified and explained and broadened, but never retrograded. The Roth standards were so applied to an indictment under the Federal Obscenity Statute (18 U.S.C. § 1461) in Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463, 86 S.Ct. 942, and in Mishkin v. State of New York, 383 U.S. 502, 86 S.Ct. 958, involving the New York Obscenity Statute appearing as § 1141 New York Penal Code, McKinney’s Consol.Laws, c. 40. Finally, the Supreme Court of the United States epitomized its Roth decision in A Book Named John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure v. Attorney General of Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413, 86 S.Ct. 975.
This ordinance is assailed on the ground that it does not contain necessary standards and indispensable guides to vouchsafe the adequate protection of these First Amendment rights of these exhibitors; that it is vulnerable to the vagueness doctrine and does not have built into the ordinance itself any safeguard against devastating delays and chilling expense of litigation. The trial court again detected and valiantly tried to remedy this last mentioned infirmity by judicial fiat, but to no avail. There is nothing in this ordinance or the record to support the Court’s optimism in finding that any litigation under this ordinance could be concluded in thirty-five days.2
These prior restraints upon free speech surely come before the Court bearing a heavy presumption against their Constitutional validity. It is noteworthy that not one of this nine member board need be a lawyer versed in detecting and deciding upon any of the niceties of the protected vested right of free speech. The dangers of a censor system of any kind and its vices are recountered in Freedman v. State of Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, 85 S.Ct. 734, where it is said:
“To this end, the exhibitor must be assured, by statute or authoritative judicial construction, that the censor will, within a specified brief period, either issue a license or go to court *610to restrain showing the film. Any restraint imposed in advance of a final judicial determination on the merits must similarly be limited to preservation of the status quo for the shortest fixed period compatible with sound judicial resolution. Moreover, we are well aware that, even after expiration of a temporary restraint, an administrative refusal to license, signifying the censor’s view that the film is unprotected, may have a discouraging effect on the exhibitor. See Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, supra. Therefore, the procedure must also assure a prompt final judicial decision, to minimize the deterrent effect of an interim and possibly erroneous denial of a license.”
It may not be doubted that this ordinance is in reality one of limited censorship, though it is called a classification ordinance. Any such kind of censorship apparatus is said to be always fraught with danger and viewed with suspicion of its constitutional invalidity. Standards for testing and safeguards against expensive and extended litigation must be built into the ordinance to safeguard against the ultimate and effectual destruction of First Amendment rights. In Freedman v. State of Maryland, supra, the Court stated, “Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.” The operation of this ordinance must envision the existence of a strong presumption that the film contains protected free speech material and that the burden rests upon the board to overcome it. That is the rule applicable to the noncriminal' aspect of this ordinance but it also has a criminal aspect. The Freedman case suggests some provisions for a statute to avoid chilling these protected rights of an exhibitor.
The municipality in this case undertook to unilaterally control the course of subsequent litigation, but the municipality is subject to the state statutes and rules of Court for disposition of cases and a time-table of litigation is not committed to the control of Dallas. The ordinance is thus lacking in its protection of a valuable right of due process. Two of the present Supreme Court Justices would not even approve such an ordinance if it complied with the Freedman rule, but would insist upon literal respect for these First Amendment rights and deny all paralyzing power to the censor. The attempts of the municipality to comply with this requirement are largely precatory in nature.
An analysis of § 46A-1 (f) of this ordinance must be made for an understanding of the classification “not suitable for young persons.” That is the heart of this ordinance. It was this provision which the trial court propped up by relating it to obscenity. There is thus submitted to an administrative board for its impressions and reactions, the examination of a film for their determination as to whether or not it is fit for exhibition to young persons under sixteen years of age. This ordinance says nothing about obscenity, but irrefragably invades that field under a different cloak —not as a censor, but as a classifier with the same power and effect. The Supreme Court says that obscene material finds no protection under the First Amendment and has indicated a modified standard for determination of obscenity where young persons are involved. In A Book Named John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure v. Attorney General of Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413, 86 S.Ct. 975, “We defined obscenity in Roth in the following terms: Whether to the average persons, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.’ 354 U.S., at 489, 77 S.Ct., at 1311. Under this definition, as elaborated in subsequent cases, three elements must coalesce : It must be established that (a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex; (b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the de*611scription or representation of sexual matters; and (c) the material is utterly without redeeming social value.”
Section 46A-1 (Definitions) makes no provision for application of any given standards of morality or guides to be used and employed by the board in making its impressions and determinations as to the fitness of the particular film for exhibition. Thus, without any instructions on the subject of First Amendment rights, this board is set adrift among myriad shoals for the laudible purpose of protecting its young people from shows that they should not see and hear for their best interest. Yet, there are no procedural safeguards in this Dallas ordinance to safeguard and protect and vouchsafe to the exhibitor their First Amendment rights. We are told that Dallas is even now enforcing this ordinance as written.
Finally, § 2 of this ordinance provides: “That any person who shall violate any provisions (sic) of this ordinance shall be guilty of a misdemeanor” and upon conviction shall be fined two hundred dollars for each offense. It may be safely doubted that the average person could understand exactly that which is proscribed by this ordinance to avoid criminal punishment. While § 46A-4 is captioned “Offenses,” this section is not all comprehensive of that which seems to be prohibited by this criminal provision. It may be well doubted that this ordinance thus conveys sufficiently definite warning as to the proscribed criminal conduct to define a valid criminal offense. It seems to follow as a matter of course that this ordinance is surely vulnerable to the Vagueness Doctrine as presently applied. It impinges upon the protected rights of motion picture exhibitors under the First Amendment as implemented by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
With reluctance, I respectfully dissent for the reasons indicated.

 William Harold Cox, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Mississippi, sitting by designation.

. The Court while considering a motion picture film for its fitness to be displayed in the Jacobellis case, supra, declined to abnegate its duty to protect First Amendment rights, saying: “Since it is only ‘obscenity’ that is excluded from the constitutional protection, the question whether a particular work is obscene necessarily implicates an issue of constitutional law,” citing Roth.

. With no intervening change in any fact or circumstance, in Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. City of Dallas on November 9, 1965 247 F.Supp. 906, 911, the Court said: “[T]here being no provision in the Texas statutes for prompt judicial review in the trial and appellate courts, and experience being that risk of delay is built into the Texas procedure, the Ordinance in question lacks sufficient procedural safeguards designed to obviate the dangers of a censorship system.”