Editing Miller v. California

{{Short description|1973 U.S. Supreme Court case on obscenity}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2021}}
{{Infobox SCOTUS case
 |Litigants=Miller v. California|ArgueDateA=January 18
 |ArgueDateB=19
 |ArgueYear=1972
 |ReargueDate=November 7
 |ReargueYear=1972
 |DecideDate=June 21
 |DecideYear=1973
 |FullName=Marvin Miller v. State of California
 |ParallelCitations=93 S. Ct. 2607; 37 [[Lawyers' Edition|L. Ed. 2d]] 419; 1973 [[LexisNexis|U.S. LEXIS]] 149; 1 Media L. Rep. 144.1
 |USVol=413
 |USPage=15
 |Prior=Summary affirmation of jury verdict by Appellate Department, Superior Court of California, County of Orange, was unpublished.
 |Subsequent=
 |Holding=Obscene materials are defined as those that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, find, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest; that depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law; and that the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
 |Majority=Burger
 |JoinMajority=White, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist
 |Dissent=Douglas
 |Dissent2=Brennan
 |JoinDissent2=Stewart, Marshall
 |LawsApplied=[[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|U.S. Const. amend. I]]; Cal. Penal Code 311.2(a)
}}
'''''Miller v. California''''', 413 U.S. 15 (1973), was a [[List of landmark court decisions in the United States|landmark decision]] of the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] clarifying the legal definition of [[obscenity]] as material that lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value".<ref name=":0">''Miller v. California'', [https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=287180442152313659&q=413+U.S.+15+&hl=en&as_sdt=6,39 413 U.S 15] (S. Ct., 1973).</ref> The ruling was the origin of the three-part judicial test for determining obscene media content that can be banned by government authorities, which is now known as the [[Miller test]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=Law of the Internet|last=Delta|first=George B.|others=Matsuura, Jeffrey H.|isbn=9780735575592|edition=Third|location=New York|oclc=255899673}}</ref>

==Background==
In 1971, Marvin Miller, owner of a California mail-order business specializing in [[Pornography|pornographic]] films and books, [[Advertising mail|mass-mailed]] a brochure advertising products that graphically depicted sexual activity between men and women. Five of the brochures were mailed to a restaurant in [[Newport Beach, California|Newport Beach]], [[California]]. The owner and his mother opened the envelope and, upon seeing the brochures, called the police.<ref>John Henry Merryman, Albert Edward Elsen, Stephen K. Urice, Law, Ethics, and the Visual Arts, (Frederick, MD: Aspen Publishers, 2007) 687</ref>

Miller was arrested and charged with violating California Penal Code 311.2(a) which says in part: "Every person who knowingly sends or causes to be sent, or brings or causes to be brought, into this state for sale or distribution, [...] any obscene matter is for a first offense, guilty of a [[misdemeanor]]."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/311.2.html |title=California Penal Code Section 311.2 – California Attorney Resources – California Laws |publisher=Law.onecle.com |date=February 22, 2013 |access-date=April 3, 2013}}</ref> California lawmakers wrote the statute based on two previous Supreme Court obscenity rulings:<ref name=":1">{{Bluebook journal | first=Beverly G.| last=Miller | title=Miller v. California: A Cold Shower for the First Amendment | volume=48 | journal=St. John's L. Rev. | page=568 | pin= | url=https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/lawreview/vol48/iss3/10 | year=1974}}</ref> ''[[Memoirs v. Massachusetts]]''<ref name="Memoirs">''Book Named "John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" v. Attorney General of Mass.'', [https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10189557359995044131&q=Memoirs+v.+Massachusetts&hl=en&as_sdt=6,39 383 U.S. 413] (S.Ct., 1966).</ref> and ''[[Roth v. United States]]''.<ref name="Roth">''Roth v. United States'', [https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14778925784015245625&q=+354+U.S.+476&hl=en&as_sdt=6,39 354 U.S. 476] (S. Ct., 1957).</ref>

Miller was tried by jury at the [[Superior Courts of California|Superior Court of Orange County]]. The judge instructed the jury to evaluate the evidence by the [[community standards]] of California as defined by the statute.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://courses.cs.vt.edu/cs3604/lib/Censorship/3-prong-test.html |title=Three Prong Obscenity Test |publisher=Courses.cs.vt.edu |access-date=April 3, 2013}}</ref> The jury returned a guilty verdict.<ref name=":0" />

Miller appealed to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court, arguing that the jury instructions did not use the standard set in ''Memoirs v. Massachusetts'' which said that in order to be judged obscene, materials must be "utterly without redeeming social value."<ref name=Memoirs/> The appellate division rejected this argument and upheld the jury verdict. Miller then filed an appeal with the [[California Courts of Appeal|California Court of Appeal for the Third District]], which declined to review the lower court rulings.<ref name=":0" /> 

Adopting a [[freedom of speech]] argument, Miller applied to the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] for ''[[certiorari]]'', which was granted. The first oral arguments were heard in January 1972.<ref name=":0" />

==Supreme Court precedents on obscenity==
The U.S. Supreme Court granted ''certiorari'' to Miller because the California statute at issue was based on two previous obscenity precedents that the Court wanted to revisit. Chief Justice [[Warren Burger]] believed that the Court's [[United States obscenity law|obscenity jurisprudence]] was misguided and that governments should be given more leeway to ban obscene materials. Burger pushed for a looser definition of "obscenity" which would allow local prosecutions. Meanwhile, Justice [[William J. Brennan, Jr.]], pushed for [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] protection for all "obscenity" unless distributed to minors or exposed offensively to unconsenting adults. These disagreements among the Justices resulted in three different hearings, pushing Miller's case into 1973.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/constitutional-law/constitutional-law-keyed-to-sullivan/freedom-of-speech-why-government-restricts-speech-unprotected-and-less-protected-expression/miller-v-california-4/|title=Miller vs. California. (2011, January 26)|access-date=February 21, 2012|website=www.casebriefs.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=MILLER v. CALIFORNIA. The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law|date= February 18, 2012|url=https://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1971/1971_70_73}}</ref>

Since the ''[[Roth v. United States]]'' ruling in 1957,<ref name=Roth/> the Supreme Court had struggled to define what embodied constitutionally unprotected obscene material. Under the [[Comstock laws]] controlling mail distribution that prevailed before ''Roth'', any material that tended to "deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences" was deemed "obscene" and could be banned on that basis.<ref name=":0" /> ''Roth'' defined obscenity more strictly, as material whose "dominant theme taken as a whole appeals to the [[wikt:prurient|prurient]] interest" to the "average person, applying contemporary [[community standards]]". Only material meeting this test could now be banned as "obscene".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.thoughtco.com/roth-v-united-states-1957-supreme-court-decision-250052 |title=What Did Roth v. United States Say About Obscenity? |last=Cline |first=Austin |date=May 15, 2019 |website=ThoughtCo  |access-date=May 31, 2019}}</ref>

In ''[[Jacobellis v. Ohio]]'' in 1964, concerning a state ban of an adult-oriented film, Justice [[Potter Stewart]] opined that the Court "was faced with the task of trying to define what may be indefinable", and that criminal laws were constitutionally limited to [[hardcore pornography]], which he did not try to define: "perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But [[I know it when I see it]]".<ref>{{ussc|name=Jacobellis v. Ohio|volume=378|page=184|pin=197|year=1964}} (Stewart, J., concurring); {{Bluebook journal | first=Paul | last=Gewirtz | title=On I Know It When I See It | volume=105 | journal=Yale L.J. | page=1023 | pin= | url=https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/1706/ | year=1996}}</ref> In ''[[Memoirs v. Massachusetts]]'' in 1966, the Supreme Court refined the ''Roth'' test to material that is "patently offensive" and "utterly without redeeming [[Value system|social value]]".<ref name="Memoirs" /> These precedents resulted in an unclear definition of obscene material that could be banned by government authorities.<ref name=":1" />

==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" />

==Impact and subsequent events==
The ''Miller'' ruling, and particularly the resulting [[Miller test]], was the Supreme Court's first comprehensive explication of obscene material that does not qualify for [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] protection and thus can be banned by governmental authorities with criminal charges for those who distribute it. Furthermore, due to the three-part test's stringent requirements, very few types of content can now be completely banned, and material that is appropriate for consenting adults can only be partially restricted per delivery method.<ref name="GodwinReason">{{cite web |last=Godwin |first=Mike |author-link=Mike Godwin |date=October 2001 |title=Standards Issue&nbsp;– The Supreme Court, "community standards," and the Internet |url=http://reason.com/archives/2001/10/01/standards-issue |access-date=11 October 2012 |work=[[Reason Foundation]]}}</ref> 

The ruling had no direct impact on government attempts to restrict live adult entertainment, which is largely addressed in another Supreme Court precedent from roughly the same period: ''[[Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton]].''<ref>''Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton'', [https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7437343063858529835&q=413+U.S.+49&hl=en&as_sdt=6,39 413 U.S. 49] (S. Ct., 1973). </ref>

Categories of media material that completely fail the Miller test, and thus can be completely banned by government authorities, have been narrowed down in later Supreme Court rulings. [[Child pornography]] was deemed to be unprotected by the First Amendment in ''[[New York v. Ferber]]'' in 1982, because it has no redeeming social value per the Miller test.<ref>''New York v. Ferber'', [https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1226851723986989726&q=458+U.S.+747&hl=en&as_sdt=6,39 458 U.S. 747] (S. Ct., 1982).</ref> In ''[[Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition]]'' in 2002, however, the Court held that sexually explicit material that only ''appears'' to depict minors, but actually does not, might also be considered obscenity with no redeeming social value.<ref name="Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition">''Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition'', [https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4016009721484982910&q=Ashcroft+v.+Free+Speech+Coalition,+535+U.S.+234&hl=en&as_sdt=6,39 535 U.S. 234] (S. Ct., 2002).</ref>

The "[[community standards]]" portion of the Miller test is of particular relevance with the rise of the Internet, as materials believed by some to be "obscene" can be accessed from anywhere in the nation, including places where there is a greater concern than other areas of the nation. Enforcing and applying obscenity laws to the Internet have proven difficult.<ref name="GodwinReason" /> Due to the difficulty in determining which "community" is most relevant, both the [[Child Pornography Prevention Act]] (CPPA) and the [[Child Online Protection Act]] (COPA) have had sections struck down as unconstitutional in cases such as ''Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition''<ref name="Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition" /> and ''[[Ashcroft v. ACLU]]''.<ref name="Ashcroft1">''Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union'', {{ussc|volume=535|page=564|pin=|year=2002}}.</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 413]]
* [[Sex-related court cases]]
*[[United States obscenity law]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book |chapter=Miller v. California |last=Tuman |first=Joseph |title=Free Speech on Trial: Communication Perspectives on Landmark Supreme Court Decisions |url=https://archive.org/details/freespeechontria00park |url-access=limited |editor=Parker, Richard A.|year=2003 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |location=Tuscaloosa, Alabama |isbn=0-8173-1301-X |pages=[https://archive.org/details/freespeechontria00park/page/n197 187]–202 }}

==External links==
*{{wikisource-inline|Miller v. California (413 U.S. 15)}}
*{{caselaw source
 | case=''Miller v. California'', {{ussc|413|15|1973|el=no}}
 | cornell =https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/413/15
 | courtlistener =https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108838/miller-v-california/
 | findlaw = https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/413/15.html
 | googlescholar = https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=287180442152313659
 | justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/413/15/case.html
 | loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep413/usrep413015/usrep413015.pdf
 | openjurist =https://openjurist.org/413/us/15
 | oyez =https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-73
 }}
* [https://swap.stanford.edu/20080725073644/http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/faclibrary/case.aspx?case=Miller_v_CA First Amendment Library entry for ''Miller v. California'']
* [https://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/247/audioresources Audio recordings or oral arguments and rearguments], from Oyez.org

{{US1stAmendment Freedom of Speech Clause Supreme Court case law|state=collapsed}}

[[Category:United States Supreme Court decisions that overrule a prior Supreme Court decision]]
[[Category:United States First Amendment case law]]
[[Category:United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court]]
[[Category:United States obscenity case law]]
[[Category:1973 in United States case law]]
[[Category:1973 in California]]
[[Category:Legal history of California]]
[[Category:United States Supreme Court cases]]