Court Opinion

ID: 9425559
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:02.876123+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:56.197578
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
dissenting.
Petitioners in this case were convicted of selling obscene books and distributing obscene motion pictures in violation of a local ordinance. They argue that, in the absence of evidence of pandering, selling to minors, or the affronting of unwilling recipients, their convictions are violative of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. In support of the convictions, respondent relies on United States v. Reidel, 402 U. S. 351, and United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U. S. 363.
In Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, this Court laid to rest the notion that a State may, consistent with the First Amendment, enforce an approved reading list delineating what materials the citizenry will be allowed privately to peruse. Wholly aside from my own views on what the Constitution demands with respect to obscenity regulation, I fail to comprehend how the right to possession enunciated in Stanley has any meaning when States are allowed to outlaw the commercial transactions which give rise to such possession and to prosecute any merchant who attempts to sell materials to all the Stanleys in this country. I would therefore grant this petition and reverse the convictions on the basis of Stanley v. Georgia, supra.