Editing Miller v. California (section)

==Opinion of the Court==
Miller had based his appeal in California on the ''[[Memoirs v. Massachusetts]]'' precedent, particularly its test for material without any redeeming social value. Miller believed that such material had value for consenting adults who purchased it voluntarily.<ref name=":0" /> Per this argument positioning such material as items of expression, the question before the Court was whether the sale and distribution of that material was protected under the First Amendment's guarantee of [[Freedom of Speech|freedom of speech]]. The court determined that the material at issue in Miller's case was pornography that could have been banned under the ''Roth'' precedent.<ref name=":0" /> 

However, the Court acknowledged "the inherent dangers of undertaking to regulate any form of expression", and said that "State statutes designed to regulate obscene materials must be carefully limited."<ref name=":0" /> The Court, in an attempt to set such limits, devised a set of three criteria which must be met for a media item to be legitimately subjected to state regulatory bans:
# whether the average person, applying contemporary [[community standards]], would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the [[wiktionary:prurient|prurient]] interest;
# whether the work depicts or describes, in an offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions, as specifically defined by applicable state law; and
# whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious [[Literature|literary]], [[art]]istic, [[Politics|political]], or [[Science|scientific]] value.<ref name=":0" />

This test clarified the definition of [[United States obscenity law|obscenity]] originally set out in the ''Memoirs'' precedent.<ref name=Memoirs/> This three-part analysis became known as the [[Miller test]].<ref name=":2" /> 

The result of the ruling was that the Supreme Court overturned Miller's criminal conviction and [[Remand (court procedure)|remanded]] the case back to the California Superior Court for reconsideration of whether Miller had committed a misdemeanor.<ref name=":1" /> On overturning Miller's conviction, the Court stated: "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."<ref name=":0" />