The Miller test, also called the three-prong obscenity test, is the United States Supreme Court's test for determining whether speech or expression can be labeled obscene, in which case it is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and can be prohibited.
Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court modifying its definition of obscenity from that of "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." It is now referred to as the three-prong standard or the Miller test.
Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413 (1966), was the United States Supreme Court decision that attempted to clarify a holding regarding obscenity made a decade earlier in Roth v. United States (1957).
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957), along with its companion case Alberts v. California, was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court which redefined the Constitutional test for determining what constitutes obscene material unprotected by the First Amendment.
The Hicklin test is a legal test for obscenity established by the English case Regina v Hicklin (1868). At issue was the statutory interpretation of the word "obscene" in the Obscene Publications Act 1857, which authorized the destruction of obscene books. The court held that all material tending "to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences" was obscene, regardless of its artistic or literary merit.
Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U.S. 564 (2002), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the American Civil Liberties Union and the United States government regarding the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The unconstitutionality of the law was ultimately upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, while earlier injunctions against the law by that same court were at first dismissed by but later upheld by the Supreme Court. Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) dealt with a similar law, the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA).
New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court, unanimously ruling that the First Amendment right to free speech did not forbid states from banning the sale of material depicting children engaged in sexual activity, even if the material was not obscene.
The phrase "I know it when I see it" is a colloquial expression by which a speaker attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly defined parameters. The phrase was used in 1964 by United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to describe his threshold test for obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio. In explaining why the material at issue in the case was not obscene under the Roth test, and therefore was protected speech that could not be censored, Stewart wrote:
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
MANual Enterprises, Inc. v. Day, 370 U.S. 478 (1962), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that magazines consisting largely of photographs of nude or near-nude male models are not obscene within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1461. It was the first case in which the Court engaged in plenary review of a Post Office Department order holding obscene matter "nonmailable."
As a legal term in the United States, community standards arose from a test to determine whether material is or is not obscene as explicated in the 1957RA Supreme Court decision in the matter of Roth v. United States. In its 6–3 decision written by William J. Brennan, Jr., the court held that material being obscene depended upon "whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest." With its emphasis on the reaction of an average person rather than that of an especially susceptible person, the court rejected applying the Hicklin test as a means of determining whether material is obscene, and the ruling represented a liberalization of the nation's obscenity laws.
An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin obscēnus, obscaenus, "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. The word can be used to indicate strong moral repugnance and outrage, in expressions such as "obscene profits" and "the obscenity of war". As a legal term, it usually refers to graphic depictions of people engaged in sexual and excretory activity, and related utterances of profane speech.
In People vs Freeman of 1988, the California Supreme Court stated that adult film production was to be protected as free speech under the First Amendment. They ruled that since such films did not include obscene images and indecency, and stayed within society's standards, the adult film industry should be granted the freedom of speech. Escaping highly regulated government intervention, regulation in the adult film industry has been limited to preventing child pornography. In the United States Code of Regulations, under title Title 18, Section 2257, no performers under the age of 18 are allowed to be employed by adult industry production companies. The failure to abide by this regulation results in civil and criminal prosecutions. To enforce the age entry restriction, all adult industry production companies are required to have a Custodian of Records that documents and holds records of the ages of all performers.
Pornography in the Americas consists of pornography made and viewed in North, Central and South American and Caribbean countries and territories. The culture of Latin America and French America has traditionally been strongly influenced by the Roman Catholic Church, which tends to be socially conservative. Pornography is least restricted and essentially legal in those countries where the Catholic church is politically and socially the weakest, such as Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. The viewing of pornography in the region has been popularized by the Internet and DVDs.
Sable Communications of California v. Federal Communications Commission, 492 U.S. 115 (1989), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the definition of "indecent material" and whether it is protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court invalidated part of a federal law that prohibited "dial-a-porn" telephone messaging services by making it a crime to transmit commercial telephone messages that were either "obscene" or "indecent".
In the United States, some categories of speech are not protected by the First Amendment. According to the Supreme Court of the United States, the U.S. Constitution protects free speech while allowing limitations on certain categories of speech.
United States obscenity law deals with the regulation or suppression of what is considered obscenity. In the United States, discussion of obscenity typically relates to pornography, as well as issues of freedom of speech and of the press, otherwise protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Issues of obscenity arise at federal and state levels. The States have a direct interest in public morality and have responsibility in relation to criminal law matters, including the punishment for the production and sale of obscene materials. State laws operate only within the jurisdiction of each state, and there are wide differences in such laws. The federal government is involved in the issue indirectly, by making it an offense to distribute obscene pornographic material depicting children through the mail, to broadcast them, as well as in relation to importation of such materials.
Heller v. New York, 413 U.S. 483 (1973), was a United States Supreme Court decision which upheld that states could make laws limiting the distribution of obscene material, provided that these laws were consistent with the Miller test for obscene material established by the Supreme Court in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973). Heller was initially convicted for showing a sexually explicit film in the movie theater which he owned, under New York Penal Law § 235.0 which stated that and individual “is guilty of obscenity when, knowing its content and character, he 1. Promotes, or possesses with intent to promote, any obscene material; or 2. Produces, presents or directs an obscene performance or participates in a portion thereof which is obscene or which contributes to its obscenity."
Rabe v. Washington, 405 U.S. 313 (1972), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving the application of obscenity laws and criminal procedure to the states. On 29 August 1968, William Rabe, the manager of a drive-in movie theater in Richland, Washington, was arrested on obscenity charges for showing the film Carmen, Baby. Due to First Amendment concerns, the local court convicted Rabe not on the basis that the film as a whole was obscene, but that exhibiting it in a drive-in theater was. The Supreme Court reversed the conviction holding that the citizens of Washington State had no notice under the Sixth Amendment that the place where a film was shown was an element of the offense.
Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463 (1966), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving the application of the First Amendment to Federal obscenity laws. One of a trio of cases, Ginzburg was part of the Supreme Court's attempt to refine the definitions of obscenity after the landmark 1957 case Roth v. United States.
