On May 4, 1987 the Supreme Court released their 5-4 decision. The court had examined “whether in a prosecution for the sale of allegedly obscene materials, the jury may be instructed to apply community standards in deciding the value question.” The majority included Rehnquist, White, Powell, O’Connor and Scalia. It concluded: “Just as the ideas a work represents need not obtain majority approval to merit protection, neither, insofar as the First Amendment is concerned, does the value of the work vary from community to community based on the degree of local acceptance won.” The Court observed that only the first two prongs of the Miller Test were discussed in terms of applying community standards because they are questions of fact and therefore, subject to review under community standards. However, failure to mention community standards in the value portion of the test was not an error, but and emphasis that such measures were inept. The serious value element is subject to judicial review and is ultimately a question of the law; because a question of the law should not vary from community to community, a national or objective standard must pertain. The Court concluded, “The proper inquiry is not whether an ordinary member …show more content…
Illinois, the constitutional position on obscene material has not changed. The Miller Test, with the revised third prong has remained unaltered and obscenity prosecutions have continued in steady decline from 1990. The dispute and definition of obscenity still persist but with the lack of Supreme Court attention to such matters it development is unlikely. Perhaps the law of obscenity ought to be reexamined and defined to create a more constructive standard. Or, just as feasibly, it could be considered that a unanimous, objective standard is unattainable as Justice Stevens stated in his dissent “De gustibus non est disputandum. Just as there is no arguing about taste, there is no use litigating about
In the majority opinion, Justice White wrote “Educators did not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the content of student speech so long as their actions were” The court also noted that the paper was a sponsored newspaper by the school which was not intended to be seen by the public, but rather for journalism students to write articles based off of the requirements for journalism 2 class, and all subjects must be appropriate for the school and all its
The Supreme Court reversed the decision concluding that Smith et al. were using their religious beliefs and the First Amendment to condone their illegal drug use. In addition the Justices expressed the view that the law applied to the general public, not to just one religious group. Therefore, in a 6-3 decision, the Supr...
The court for this case found that the search and seizure of the stereo violated the fourth and fourteenth Amendments. The Decision was 6 votes for Hicks and 3 votes against.
There have been many Supreme Court cases that dealed with many concepts of the law, like obscenity for example. As a matter of fact, obscenity is a concept that Miller v. California deals with. To be more specific, this case deals with what is considered obscene, and if the specific obscenity mentioned in this case is protected by the first amendment, the freedom of speech. I will now explain this case in more depth.
[49] Justice Frank Murphy’s Notes on Screws et al. v. United States, Frank Murphy Papers.
Palmer, Elizabeth A. "The Court and Public Opinion." CQ Weekly 2 Dec. 2000. CQ Weekly. SAGE Publications. Web. 1 Mar. 2000. .
The “reasonable man/police officer” test is an important tool used in the U.S Supreme Court system.
The case that I chose to analyze is Reno v. ACLU. It is the first Internet related U.S. Supreme Court case ever to be decided. Seven of the justices found the argued provisions of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) were unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The court found that the Internet is similar to a shopping mall or library not a broadcast medium as the government refered to it. The majority opinion for this case was that the Internet is a unique marketplace for ideas. The ruling states that while there is a large amount of pornographic material out there, it normally isn’t come across on accident. They stated that the CDA already holds back a good amount of speech that is alright for adult to adult conversations, which they do have a constitutional right to receive. While they recognize the CDA efforts to protect children from harmful speech and pornographic material, it still does not justify the unnecessarily broad suspension of speech. The final outcome was that they found that what the CDA was trying to do would violate speakers messages who are rightfully protected under the First Amendment.
Constitutionally, the case at first appears to be a rather one-sided violation of the First Amendment as incorporated through the Fourteenth. The court, however, was of a different opinion: "...
In her essay “Let’s Put Pornography Back in the Closet,” Susan Brownmiller, a prominent feminist activist, argues that pornography should not be protected under the First Amendment (59). Her position is based on the belief that pornography is degrading and abusive towards women (Brownmiller 59). She introduces the reader to the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, and explains how it relates to her beliefs on censoring pornographic material (Brownmiller 58). In addition, she provides examples of First Amendment controversies such as Miller v. California and James Joyce’s Ulysses to explain how the law created a system to define pornographic material (Brownmiller 58). She described the system that used a three-part test as confusing (Brownmiller 58). Regardless of whether or not the First Amendment was intended to protect obscenities, she and many others believe that the legislatures should have the final say in the decision of creating and publishing pornography (Brownmiller 60).
Restraint and Activism Judicial activism is loosely defined as decisions or judgements handed down by judges that take a broad interpretation of the constitution. It is a decision that is more of a reflection of how the judge thinks the law should be interpreted, rather than how the law has or was intended to be interpreted. There are many examples of judicial activism; examples include the opinions of Sandra Day O'Connor in the Lynch v. Donnelly and the Wallace v. Jaffree trials. Sandra Day argues for the changing of the First Amendment's ban on "establishment" of religion into a ban on "endorsement" of religion. Others include the U.S. v. Kinder, where Congress passed legislation that would require a minimum sentence for persons caught distributing more than 10 grams of cocaine.
Klein, Chuck. “What the Second Amendment Says.” The Cincinnati Enquirer 28 March 2001: B7. 5 April 2004
In this case study, we can use the data provided to analyse the number of cups of coffee consumed in a week for the males and females, by using SPSS. It is clear that it can be used the independent-samples t-test for this question. For this case, we can use the independent-samples t-test to compare the mean scores on some continuous variable for two different groups. In other words, we need one independent variable (e.g. males and females) and dependent variable (e.g. the number of cups of coffee consumed a week) to test significant difference in the mean scores for the two groups. From the coffee drinking habits research, we could obtain this statistic of how males and females differ significantly in terms of their coffee consumption during
Kieran, M. (2008, January 28). Art, censorship and morality. Open Learn, the Open University. Retrieved January 5, 2014 from http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/philosophy/art-censorship-and-morality
... in setting standards for society to conform to. Therefor Hart supported the committee with a more liberal view and Devlin didn’t with a more authoritarian, paternalistic view. It is clear there are both case and statute law which reflect both viewpoints. In the case of Brown it shows how law enforces moral values and places the public good over individual freedom. However the law on homosexuality now reflect a more liberal view and so gives freedom and individual choice.