Pope v. Illinois

1987-05-04

Headline: Court bars juries from using statewide community standards to judge literary value in obscenity trials, adopts a 'reasonable person' test, and sends cases back so lower courts can decide whether the instruction error affected verdicts.

Holding: The Court held juries may not use statewide community standards to decide a work's serious value, adopted a 'reasonable person' test for value, and sent the cases back so courts can determine if the error affected the verdict.

Real World Impact:

Prevents juries from applying statewide community standards to the Miller value question.
Replaces that inquiry with a "reasonable person" test for serious value.
Sends convictions back for lower courts to decide if the instruction error was harmless.

Topics: obscenity law, adult bookstore sales, jury instructions, First Amendment

Summary

Background

Two men who worked as attendants at adult bookstores sold magazines that Rockford, Illinois police detectives bought in July 1983. The men were charged under an Illinois obscenity law. At trial, judges told juries to decide the magazines’ value by asking how “ordinary adults in the whole State of Illinois” would view them. The juries convicted, the state appellate court affirmed, and the Supreme Court agreed to review the cases.

Reasoning

The Court addressed whether a jury may apply community standards when deciding whether a work “has serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” The majority held the value question should not be judged by statewide community standards. Instead, the proper inquiry is whether a reasonable person would find serious value in the work taken as a whole. Because the juries were instructed using the community-standards formulation, the instruction was unconstitutional. The Court did not immediately overturn the convictions. It sent the cases back so lower courts could decide whether the instructional error was harmless — that is, whether the error affected the jury’s verdict.

Real world impact

The ruling changes how juries must be instructed in obscenity prosecutions about the value element. Sellers of adult magazines and prosecutors will face a different jury standard. The Supreme Court’s decision does not itself determine guilt; lower courts must decide whether the instruction error changed the outcome.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Stevens (joined by others) argued the error could never be harmless, criticized the “reasonable person” test, and said criminalizing sales to consenting adults is unconstitutional; other Justices filed concurrences with narrower views.