Miller V California
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
SUMMARY
The owner of a California mail-order business specializing in pornographic films and books sent brochures to unsuspecting families. Miller v California was decided June 21, 1973.
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BACKGROUND
In 1971, Marvin Miller sent out a brochure that graphically depicted sexual activity between men and women. Five of the brochures were mailed to a restaurant in Newport Beach, California. The owner and his mother opened the envelope and seeing the brochures, called the police.
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Miller was arrested and charged with violating California Penal Code 311.2 which says in part, "Every person who knowingly sends any obscene matter is for a first offense, guilty of a misdemeanor." California lawmakers wrote the statute based on two previous Supreme Court obscenity cases, Memoirs v. Massachusetts and Roth v. United States.
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Miller was tried by jury in the Superior Court of Orange County. At the conclusion of the evidence phase, the judge instructed the jury to evaluate the evidence by the community standards of California. The jury returned a guilty verdict.
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Miller appealed to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court, arguing that only a national standard for obscenity could be applied. The appellate division rejected the argument and affirmed the jury verdict.
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Miller then filed an appeal with the California Court of Appeal for the Third District, which declined to review. Miller applied to the Supreme Court for certiorari, which was granted. Oral arguments were heard in January 1972.
ANALYSIS
Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment. State statutes designed to regulate obscene material must be limited. The scope of the regulation must be limited to works which depict or describe sexual conduct.
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The conduct must be specifically defined by the state law. The basic guidelines are: (a) whether the “average person” would find that the work would appeal to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
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DISSENTING OPINION
"It is my view that at least in the absence of distribution to juveniles or obtrusive exposure to unconsenting adults, the First and Fourteenth Amendment prohibit the State and Federal Governments from attempting wholly to suppress sexually oriented materials on the basis of their allegedly 'obscene' contents" (Brennan, J., dissenting).
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MAJORITY OPINION
"Under the holdings announced today, no one will be subject to prosecution for the sale or exposure of obscene materials unless these materials depict or describe patently offensive 'hard core' sexual conduct specifically defined by the regulating state law, as written or construed. We are satisfied that these specific prerequisites will provide fair notice to a dealer in such materials that his public and commercial activities may bring prosecution" (BURGER, C.J., majority).
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