Court Opinion

ID: 9702602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:18:29.901513+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:39.504125
License: Public Domain

SOBELOFF, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the judgment of the court. I would, however, add one comment on the court’s disposition of plaintiff’s argument that, under the rationale of Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 89 S.Ct. 1243, 22 L.Ed.2d 542 (1969), the Maryland obscenity statutes are overbroad. Ordinarily I would think it our duty to meet the issue on the merits, since the statutes do not seem to me susceptible to constructions that would completely avoid the constitutional question. Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 88 S.Ct. 391, 19 L.Ed.2d 444 (1967). However, the Supreme Court has before it a case, already argued, involving similar questions of federal abstention as well as the substantive First Amendment issue. Karalexis v. Byrne, 306 F.Supp. 1363 (D.Mass.), stay granted, 396 U.S. 976, 90 S.Ct. 469, 24 L.Ed.2d 447, 486 (1969), prob. juris, noted, 397 U.S. 985, 90 S.Ct. 1123, 25 L.Ed.2d 394 (1970). In these circumstances I agree that our most propitious course is to defer decision on the point.