An Overview to Obscenity and the 1st Amendment zLet’s get terms straight--pornography, erotica, and obscenity zA Brief History of Suppression Efforts yTies to blasphemy yFirst federal law--1842, Civil War yComstock’s Crusade yRosen v. US (1896)--adopts the Hicklin rule y1920’s--growing attacks on literature--Balzac, Voltaire, Joyce and Rousseau

The Hicklin case zBritish anti-Catholic publication called “The Confessional Unmasked; Shewing the Depravity of the Roman Priesthood, the Iniquity of the Confessional, and the Questions put to Females in Confession” zThe Hicklin Rule--“whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.” z1896--Rosen v. US upholds the Comstock Act and applies Hicklin Rule in the US

Early Court Cases on Obscenity z1933 case on Ulysses--James Joyce ythe test--1) “judge the work in its entirety”, 2) “a person of average sexual instinct,” 3) “stirs the sex impulses” Learned Hand z1942 Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire--two tiers of speech 1) speech with social value as a step to truth, and 2) that which has no social value--fighting words, the lewd, the profane, the obscene, and the libelous

The Court v. The Regulators zBurstyn v. Wilson (1952)--attempt to suppress Rossellini’s ‘The Miracle’, 9-0 reversal, no constitutional basis for suppression of blasphemy, overturns 1915 case saying films have no 1st amendment protections zKingsley International Pictures v. Regents (1959)--can’t suppress ideas like adultery may be OK``

Roth v. US (1957) 6-3 affirm the conviction of Roth z2 part definition of obscenity--it is a form of expression that is “utterly without redeeming social importance” and is “sexually lewd” meaning “whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards finds that the dominant theme of the material, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.” zexplicit rejection of Hicklin rule