Robert O. Carlson v. State of Minnesota

Petitioners were convicted on charges of selling allegedly obscene books and displaying allegedly obscene motion pictures in violation of St. Paul Legislative Code § 476.01, which provides as follows:

'Any person who shall knowingly exhibit, sell or offer to sell any obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy book, pamphlet, picture, motion picture, film, paper, letter, writing, print or other matter of indecent character shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.'

It is my view that, 'at least in the absence of distribution to juveniles or obtrusive exposure to unconsenting adults, the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the state and federal governments from attempting wholly to suppress sexually oriented materials on the basis of their allegedly 'obscene' contents.' Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 113, 93 S. Ct. 2628, 37 L. Ed. 2d 446 (1973) (dissenting opinion of Brennan, J.). It is clear that, tested by that constitutional standard, § 476.01 is constitutionally overbroad and therefore invalid on its face. For the reasons stated in my dissent in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 47, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419 (1973), I would therefore grant certiorari, vacate the judgment of the Minnesota Supreme Court, and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with my Paris Adult Theatre I dissent.