Chapter 273: Ross v. United States

273

On the issue of what constitutes "obscene material", not only can the people of the United States not reach an agreement, but even the opinions of the nine justices are often at odds, which is why Rushberg asked Edward to collect the opinions of the justices.

Since the justices could not reach an agreement, the only way to define "obscene material" was to adopt the principle of "case by case".

In other words, the justices either collectively or individually "censored" those things.

This is very uncomfortable for both the prosecution and the defense - the justices are busy and very old and have no interest in the thing, and may even deliberately delay it because they look sad, which makes the "review" process drag on for a long time.

And after looking at the subject matter that has been "censored", they have to discuss it with each other to determine whether it is considered pornography or not.

Originally, the judicial efficiency of the United States was low (axiom 1: the more lawyers, the lower the judicial efficiency. Axiom 2: The more lawyers, the more money it costs to fight a lawsuit. Axiom 3, combining the above two points, the lawyer is the middleman who makes the difference. Now there is a cross-cutting review process, and a lawsuit is even slower.

Not only did the prosecution and defense feel uncomfortable, but the justices themselves were full of complaints.

In 1966, in Mitch Ken v. State of New York, Justice Hugo Black, who had worked in the High Court for 30 years, publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the Supreme Court's practice of characterizing pornography.

"I would like to express my objection once again so that the Federal Supreme Court can take on such a ...... The responsibility of the case, do not let the justices judge case by case, one point of view and one point of view, and say things that are too hardcore to read or read. ”

As an elder in the high court at that time, he stood up and said this, which was very kind, and he was about to retire anyway, so he let it go and did a good deed for his old colleagues before leaving.

It can be seen that the justices also feel that there is no need to be too careful about this matter, and they can close their eyes open, after all, the Supreme Court is responsible for studying the Constitution, and it is very unprofessional and a waste of time to deal with professional issues such as how many angles the heroine's legs open to be considered pornographic.

With this background, it is naturally not a problem to mail some wool sheets and wool books.

The normal situation of people, the people do not lift (there is no meaning of the people of the United States) the officials do not investigate, and everyone is happy.

But......

Mr. Miller had five books sent to a store in Newport, and his son placed an order, but his mother signed for it.

After the old mother opened it, she was startled and immediately called the police!

Then find a lawyer to sue!

The lawyer ignored Justice Hugo Black's painstaking efforts......

Whoever pays, he listens.

And this case is quite simple, there are ready-made legal provisions, and it is directly set up.

Miller must have felt that the day was over.

Booksellers all over California are doing this, so why should I go to court?

When his lawyer got the case, he was also very difficult.

Because the facts of the case are as clear as two flies on a white iron plate, his client will collect money and send Mao magazines, and according to the current California law, he will go to prison.

There is no denying the fact that steel is in general.

However, taking people's money and eliminating disasters with others, lawyers must also pay attention to professional ethics.

After thinking about it, I really came up with a defense strategy for him.

Start with the definition of "pornography".

As long as it can be legally proven that the meaty magazines sent out are not "pornographic", wouldn't all the problems be solved?

This kind of thing seemed to Edward to be a laugh-out laugh.

A superpower that has been founded for almost 200 years does not even have a definition of what "pornography" is?

The truth is that there is really no Tmd!

Otherwise, Justice Hugo Black would not have said that.

There is no such thing as a relatively well-established definition of pornography.

Even for "children's sq thing" there is a huge legal gap.

It's 1969, and only California and New York have legislated to prohibit the use of children in the production of pornography, or the use of children to disseminate s.p.m., or to perform s.p.m. performances.

And it is precisely these two states that are the most open to other pornography, but the so-called conservative states are completely unaware of this, and the truth in this is quite intriguing.

A country that claims to be the most law-oriented does not have a unified definition of SQ products, and it is not unreasonable to analyze it carefully.

In fact, the definition of "pornography" has always been a troublesome thing, like a scumbag that keeps entanglement with the development of human civilization.

In ancient or modern times, the problem is not too big, after all, although the text and pictures are yellow, but the communication effect is just like that, whether it is the Gutenberg printing press or the large-scale offset printing machine that represents the highest technology, the dissemination is still only "inducing information", and the real taste of the part has to rely on people to think about it.

But when we entered the movie era, things started to change......

In the early days, there were many Hollywood film companies, and the capital demand for wool films was small, the venue requirements were low, and the cast and crew were also okay with a film that was very suitable for small companies to get started, but fortunately, there were not many of them, and the average person opened their eyes and closed their eyes, and the real yellow ones were reported to the Supreme Court, and nine old things were responsible for review.

There was a special afternoon a week in which the justices sat together, looking at the pieces of hair and engaging in heated discussions with each other, blushing and arguing over the details of how many milliliters of time for the angle.

It's probably the best career for young people, like Edward Chris Carlwright, but for a bunch of old men who go to the toilet and tick to the toilet...... I'm afraid it's a punishment.

With the outbreak of World War II and the transition to a wartime system, the trial of traitors was much more important than the trial of gross films, so the justices no longer had to be punished.

At the same time, for the soldiers of the United States, wool + cola = combat effectiveness is an unbreakable truth, and a powerful combat power exciter can't be too stuck......

This is tantamount to an opening......

In the 50s and 50s of the 20th century, with the development of film technology and the increasingly connected world, Europe began to catch up - in fact, the old Europe never lagged behind, but it was the technology and transportation and economic problems that caused the spread to be unsmooth.

The three powers of the United States must face the problem of pornography head-on.

The first step is to create a standard, legal definition of "pornography".

With the basic definition, it is convenient to identify the Mao Shu Mao Piece, which can become a standardized process, and anyone can take up the post after moderate training, just like Edward's "Huang Inspector" in his previous life, and no longer have to bother the justices.

The old stuff is quite decent, let them be with their colleagues every week, it's really insulting to spread it, of course they may hide in the basement of their own house and look at it secretly, but that's another story.

Maybe there's still a twelve-year-old, charming, delicious, unopened, young ...... in the basement Red wine is not ......

It seems simple, but the justices never agreed on this issue, and everyone had their own idea and that idea was endorsed by a school or some political force.

Everyone has their own opinions, and only the smallest common knowledge can be obtained.

The justices were the first to choose "sexually explicit and descriptive content" as the definition of "pornographic material."

But then I found out that it was still too broad, and to be honest, those films were nothing explicit, but it was commonplace to expose other places.

Starting from the "Jack Barris Precedent", it was established that only "hardcore pornography" is "obscene material", but there has always been a lack of uniform standards for what constitutes "hardcore pornography", but it is certain that ordinary pornography does not count.

Anything that isn't "hardcore" but is quite pornographic is called "indecency" - sexually explicit depictions but not "hardcore pornography" are "obscene".

The difference between "obscenity" and "hardcore" is that the former is protected by the Constitution and the First Amendment, while the latter is not.

(First Amendment: Protection of Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Belief, Freedom of the Press, and Rights of Assembly, Protest, and Petition)

As long as the five books that Miller sent were not "hardcore pornography," then he was not guilty of the First Amendment, which means that the government cannot interfere with his mailing or censor the content of what he mails.

That's what Miller's lawyer did.

So the lawsuit went all the way up.

The prosecution's government lawyers had to do everything in their power to prove that the five books were "out-and-out hardcore pornography that would bring disaster to the country and the people and teach bad young people," while Miller's side was the complete opposite.

From a judicial point of view, this involves several well-known precedents.

First, the well-known jurisprudence that articulated the standard of obscenity was the 1868 case of Hicklin v. Reaganer, which held that any article intended to "degenerate or morally corrupt an unsuspecting person by immorality" was considered "obscene" and punishable.

This is known as the "Hicklin test".

This test gives the judge discretion to judge pornography.

Over time, this simple precedent began to seem a little weak.

The reason for this is that the "Hickling test" is often used in judicial practice based on a single consideration of a certain part of the material.

For example, if you take 2,000 words from a 20w-word book, if the judge thinks that the 2,000 words are obscene.

Then the book would be judged as pornographic and would have to be placed under government jurisdiction - banned!

In fact, from the very beginning, the skepticism about the "Hicklin test" has not stopped, but it has not become a climate.

The biggest case questioning the test was the 1933 hearing over whether the Irish writer James Joyce's Ulysses could be published in the United States.

In 1921, John Summer, director of the Society for the Suppression of Apostasy in New York (a frightening-sounding organization), and his colleagues seized an issue of the literary magazine, The Little Review, on the grounds that it had published a chapter on Ulysses.

As a result, magazine editors Margaret Anderson and John Shipp were brought to court, while writer John Cooper Boas and playwright Philip Moeller appeared as expert witnesses.

Although both Boas and Mohler attest to the obscurity of the plot of Ulysses, so that the reader will not notice some of the "x descriptions" in the book.

But the judge ruled in favor of the prosecution, banning not only the publication of the issue, but also the publication of Ulysses in the United States.

Prior to the ruling, in 1922, the U.S. Postal Service had burned 500 copies of Ulysses imported into the United States through foreign mail order to stop the importation of the book.

(To this Edward pouted, "The book is burned, and if you shoot a few more astrologers and gypsy witches who read crystal balls, it will taste even more pure......")

After a lapse of 11 years, Random House tried to break this precedent and publish Ulysses in the United States.

In 1933, "the case of United States v. Ulysses entered the trial stage.

The defense strategy employed by the lawyers hired by Random House was to demand a uniform, comprehensive verdict on the entire book, which may be "indecent" in some chapters, but which is a serious and classic work of literature.

Random House also cites reviews of professional writers or artists such as Rebecca West, Arnold Bennett, and Eliot in an attempt to prove that Joyce was a genius and that Ulysses was an epoch-making work that was needed by the general public.

But the prosecution has always determined that "Ulysses" is a "threat" to American society!

In their statement, the lawyers of the Association impassionedly stated that "because [the book] often uses foul language, which is unacceptable in a morally sound society".

Instead of applying the Hicklin test to rule that the book was "obscene," the judge in the case came up with a new precedent for the verdict, which is that Ulysses should be analyzed as a whole rather than on the basis of its parts.

In other words, in this precedent, the judge clearly held that as long as there is "even a little" in a book that can be described positively as "being kind to others", then the entire book can be protected by the First Amendment, and government agencies cannot interfere with its printing and mailing sales.

As a result, Ulysses was finally allowed to be published in the United States. In 1934 alone, the first 10,000 copies of the book sold out instantly.

It can be seen how much this judgment represents the direction of development of advanced culture and how much it represents the fundamental interests of the broadest masses of the people......

Then there was the 1957 case of Ross v. USA.

Ross is a publisher,

Guilty of mailing obscene materials, advertisements and books. (Ross was Miller's predecessor, and Miller did this because he was able to see the validity of this precedent.)

Roth's defense attorney did not deny that it was distributed by mail (in fact, Mueller's lawyer held the same view), but he insisted that the material was protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Ross case was appealed to the Court of Appeals on this basis, but it did not have the desired effect, and Samuel Ross was still found guilty.