Court Opinion

ID: 9421876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:00:16.771487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:32.560310
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
whom Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Whittaker join, concurring in the result.
I think the Court has moved too swiftly in striking down a statute which is the product of a deliberate and conscientious effort on the part of New York to meet constitutional objections raised by this Court’s decisions respecting predecessor statutes in this field. But although I disagree with the Court that the parts of §§ 122 and 122-a of the New York Education Law, 16 N. Y. Laws Ann. § 122 (McKinney 1953), 16 N: Y. Laws Ann. § 122-a (McKinney Supp. 1958), here particularly involved are unconstitutional on their face, I believe that .in their application to this film constitutional bounds were exceeded.
*703I.
Section 122-a of the State Education Law was passed in 1954 to meet this Court’s decision in Commercial Pictures Corp. v. Regents, 346 U. S. 587, which overturned the New York Court of Appeals’ holding in In re Commercial Pictures Corp. v. Board of Regents, 305 N. Y. 336, 113 N. E. 2d 502, that the-film La Ronde could be' banned as “immoral” and as “tend[ing] to corrupt morals” under § 122.1 The Court’s decision in Commercial Pictures was but a one line per curiam with a citation to Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495, which in turn had held for naught not the word “immoral” but the term “sacrilegious” in the statute.
New York, nevertheless, set about repairing its statute. This it did by enacting § 122-a which in the respects emphasized in the present opinion of Chief Judge Conway as pertinent here defines an “immoral” motion picture film as one which portrays “ ‘acts of sexual immorality ... as desirable, acceptable or proper patterns of behavior.’ ” 4 N. Y. 2d 349, 351, 151 N. E. 2d 197, 175 N. Y. S. 2d 39.2 The Court now holds this part of New York’s effort *704unconstitutional on its face under the Fourteenth Amendment. Í cannot agree.
The Court, does not suggest that these provisions are bad for. vagueness.3 Any such suggestion appears *705to me untenable in view of the long-standing usage in this Court of the concept “sexual immorality” to explain in part the meaning of “obscenity.” See, e. g., Swearingen v. United States, 161 U. S. 446, 451.4 Instead, the Court finds a constitutional vice in these provisions in that they require, so.it is said, neither “obscenity” nor incitement to “sexual immorality,” but strike of their own force at the mere advocacy of “an idea — that adultery under certain circumstances may be proper behavior”; expressions of “opinion that adultery may sometimes be proper . . . .” I think this characterization of these provisions misconceives the construction put upon them by the prevailing opinions in the Court of Appeals. Granting that the abstract public discussion or advocacy of adultery, unaccompanied by obscene portrayal or actual incitement to such behavior, may not constitutionally be proscribed by the State, I do not read those opinions to hold that the statute on its face undertakes *706any .such proscription. Chief Judge Conway’s opinion, which was joined by two others of the seven judges of the Court of Appeals, and in the thrust of which one more concurred, to be sufe with some doubt, states (4 N. Y. 2d, at 356, 151 N. E. 2d, at 200, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 44);
“It should first be emphasized that the scope of section 122r-a is not mere expression of opinion in' the form, for example, of a filmed lecture' whose subject matter is the espousal of adultery. We reiterate that this case involves the espousal of sexually immoral acts (here adultery) plus actual scenes of a suggestive and obscene nature.” (Emphasis in original.)
The opinion elsewhere, as indeed is also the case with §§ 122 and 122-a themselves when independently read in their entirety, is instinct with the notion that mere abstract expressions of opinion regarding the desirability of sexual, immorality, unaccompanied by obscenity5 or incitement, are not proscribed. See 4 N. Y. 2d 349, especially at 351-352, 354, 356-358, 361, 363-364; 151 N. E. 2d 197, at 197, 199, 200-201, 203, 204-205; 175 N. Y. S. 2d 39, at 40, 42, 44-46, 48, 50-51; and Notes 1 and 2, supra. It is the corruption of public morals, occasioned by the inciting effect of a particular portrayal or by what New York has deemed the necessary effect of obscenity, at which the statute is aimed. In the words of Chief. Judges Conway, “There is no differ*707ence in substance between motion pictures which are corruptive of -the public morals, and sexually suggestive, because of a predominance of suggestive scenes, and those which achieve precisely the same effect by presenting only several such scenes in a clearly approbatory manner throughout the course of the film. The law is concerned urith effect, not merely with but one means of producing it . . . the objection lies in the corrosive effect upon the public sense of sexual morality 4 N. Y. 2d, at 358, 151 N. E. 2d, at. 201, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 46. (Emphasis in original.)
I do not understand that the Court would question the constitutionality of the particular portions of the statute with which we are here concerned , if the Court read, as I dó, the majority opinions in the. Court of Appeals as construing these provisions to require obscenity or incitement, not just mere abstract expressions of opinion. It is difficult to understand why the Court should strain to read those opinions as it has. Our usual course in constitutional adjudication is precisely the opposite.
n.
.The application of the statute to this film is quite a different matter. I have heretofore ventured the view that in this field the States have wider constitutional latitude than the Federal Government. See the writer’s separate opinion in Roth v. United States and Alberts v. California, 354 U. S. 476, 496. With that approach, I have viewed this film.
Giving descriptive expression to what in matters of this kind are in the last analysis bound to be but individual subjective impressions, objectively as one'may try to discharge his duty as a judge, is not apt to be repaying. I shall therefore content myself with saying that, according full respect to, and with, I hope, sympathetic consideration for, the views and characterizations expressed by *708others, I cannot regard this film as depicting anything more than a somewhat unusual, and rather pathetic, “love triangle,” lacking in anything that could properly be termed obscene or corruptive of the public morals by inciting the commission of adultery. I therefore think that in banning this film New York has exceeded constitutional limits.
I conclude with one further observation. It is sometimes said that this Court should shun considering the particularities of individual cases in this difficult field lest the Court become a final “board of censorship.” But I cannot understand why it should be thought that the process of constitutional judgment in this realm somehow stands apart from that involved in other fields, particularly those presenting questions of due process. Nor can I see, short of holding that all state “censorship” laws are constitutionally impermissible, a course from which the Court is carefully abstaining, how the Court can hope ultimately to spare itself the necessity for individualized adjudication. In the very nature of'things the problems in this area are ones of individual.cases, see Roth v. United States and Alberts v. California, supra, at 496-498, for a “censorship” statute can hardly be contrived that would in effect be self-executing. And, lastly, each time such a statute is struck down, the State is left in more confusion, as witness New York’s experience with its statute.
Because I believe the New York statute was unconstitutionally applied in this instance I concur in the judgment of the Court.

 Section 122 provides: “The director jf the [motion picture] division or, when authorized by the regents, the officers of a local office or bureaú shall cause to be promptly examined every motion picture film submitted to-them as herein required, and unless such film or a part thereof is obscene, ihdecent, immoral, inhuman', sacrilegious, or is of such a character that its exhibition would tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime, shall issue, a license therefor. If such director or, when so authorized, such officer shall not license any film submitted, he shall furnish to the applicant therefor a written report of the reasons for his refusal and a description of each rejected part of a film not rejected’ in toto.”

 Section 122-a provides:
“1. For the purpose of section one hundred twenty-two of this chapter, the term ‘immoral’ and the phrase ‘of such a character that its exhibition would tend to corrupt morals’ shall denote a motion *704picture film or part thereof, the dominant purpose or effect of which is erotic or pornographic; or which portrays acts of sexual immorality, perversion, or lewdness, or which expressly or impliedly presents such acts as desirable, acceptable or proper patterns of behavior.
“2. For the purpose of section one hundred twenty-two of this chapter, the term ‘incite to. crime’ shall denote a motion picture the dominant purpose or effect of which is to suggest that the commission of criminal acts or contempt for law is profitable, desirable, acceptable, or respectable behavior; or which advocates or teaches the use of, or the methods of use of, narcotics or habit-forming drugs.”

 The bill that became § 122-a was introduced at the request of the State Education Department, which noted in a memorandum that “the issue of censorship, as such, is not involved in this bill. This bill merely attempts to follow out the criticism of the United States Supreme Court by .defining the words ‘immoral’ and ‘incite to crime.’ ” N. Y. S. Legis. Ann., 1954, 36. In a memorandum accompanying his approval of the measure, the then Governor of New York, himself a lawyer, wrote:
“Since 1921, the Education Law of this State has required the licensing of motion pictures and authorized refusal of a license for a motion picture which is ‘obscene, indecent, immoral’ or which would 'tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime.’
“Recent Supreme Court decisions have indicated that the term ‘immoral’ may not be sufficiently definite for constitutional purposes. The primary purpose of this bill is to define ‘immoral’ and ‘tend to corrupt morals’ in conformance with the apparent requirements of these cases. It does so by defining them in terms of ‘sexual immorality.’ The words selected for this definition are based on judicial opinions which have given exhaustive and reasoned treatment to the subject.
“The bill does not create any .new licensing system, expand the scope of motion picture censorship, or enlarge the area of permissible prior restraint. Its sole purpose is to give to the section more precision to make it conform to the tenor of recent court decisions and proscribe the exploitation of ‘filth for the sake of filth.’ It does so *705as accurately as language permits in ‘words well understood through long use.’ [People v. Winters, 333 U. S. 507, 518 (1948)].
“The language of the Supreme Court of the United States, in a recent opinion of this precise problem, should be noted:
“ ‘To hold that liberty and expression by means of motion pictures is guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, however, is not the end of our problem. It does not follow that the Constitution requires absolute freedom to exhibit every motion picture- of every kind at all times and all places.’ [Burstyn v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495, at 502],
“So long as the State has the responsibility for interdicting motion pictures which transgress the bounds of decency, we have the responsibility for. furnishing guide lines to the agency charged with enforcing the law.” Id., at 408.

 Certainly it cannot be claimed that adultery is not a form of “sexual immorality”; indeed adultery is made a crime in New York. N. Y. Penal Law §§100-103, 39 N. Y. Laws Ann. §§100-103 (McKinney 1944).

 Nothing in Judge Dye’s dissenting opinion,-to which the Court' refers in Note 7 of its opinion, can be taken as militating :against this view of the prevailing opinions in the Court'of Appeals. Judge Dye simply disagreed with the majority of the Court of Appeals as to the adequacy of the § 122-a definition of “immoral” to overcome prior constitutional objections to that term. See 4 N. Y. 2d, at 371, 151 N. E. 2d, at 209-210, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 57; see also the dissenting opinion of Judge Van Voorhis, 4 N. Y. 2d, at 374, 151 N. E. 2d, at 212, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 60.