Ballew v. Alabama

Background

People were convicted in Alabama for selling, exhibiting, or commercially distributing materials the State called "obscene" under an Alabama statute that defines obscenity by contemporary community standards. The Alabama courts affirmed those convictions, and the cases reached the national Court context summarized here. The dissenting opinion quotes the statutory language and notes the state courts’ rulings against the defendants.

Reasoning

Justice Brennan, joined by two colleagues, explains his view that the Constitution’s free-speech protections (the First and Fourteenth Amendments) bar the government from broadly suppressing sexually oriented materials except in narrow circumstances like distribution to minors or forcing unwanted exposure on adults. He says the Alabama statute, because it incorporates a sweeping definition of "obscene," is too broad on its face and therefore unconstitutional. He would grant review, find the statute invalid, and reverse the convictions. He also says one defendant, a person named Ballew, should get a chance to have his case decided under local community standards and possibly receive a new trial.

Real world impact

If Justice Brennan’s view controlled, many prosecutions for selling or showing sexual material to consenting adults would be harder to sustain under this Alabama law. Defendants would have more opportunity to demand that local community standards be applied and to introduce evidence on that topic. Because this text is a dissenting opinion, it does not itself change the law; the outcome could differ if the Court’s majority opinion remains different.

Dissents or concurrances

This writing is a dissent joined by Justices Stewart and Marshall and relies on the author’s earlier dissents in related obscenity cases to explain the disagreement with the state-court results.