Court Opinion

ID: 9771481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:44:51.913094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:31.906930
License: Public Domain

WOODLEY, Judge,
(dissenting).
The contents of the magazine which appellant admitted in her testimony that she sold to the officer who arrested her does *237not come under the classification of border line material, or material containing an “isolated obscene excerpt”, nor does the magazine merely depict nude females. All of the magazine is devoted to matters prohibited by the statute, and shows that those publishing and distributing it were “engaged in the commercial exploitation of the morbid and shameful craving for materials with prurient effect.” (Quote from Chief Justice Warren in Roth vs. U.S., cited in the majority opinion.)
This is the very conduct which the legislature of this state has, in its wisdom, made unlawful by the enactment of Art. 527 V.A.P.C.
Under the court’s charge, the jury in order to convict was required to find beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant had knowledge of the contents of the magazine and that she distributed it “for the purpose of corrupting and depraving the average person.” If there was error in failing to instruct the jury that the contents of the magazine were to be considered as a whole and by present day standards of the average man, the error, in view of the evidence and the charge given, was harmless and not ground for reversal. Art. 666 C.C.P.
I do not agree that the jury would have had authority to say that the possession of such a magazine for sale was lawful because its contents “have practically become contemporary literature for the City of Houston”, as counsel suggests. Even the witnesses for the defense admitted that the magazine was “trash.”