Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1973

Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton

413 U.S. 49 | 93 S. Ct. 2628 | 37 L. Ed. 2d 446 | 1973 U.S. LEXIS 19

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Takeaway

In short, this case held that States may regulate commercially exhibited obscenity even for consenting adults, but any such regulation must satisfy the constitutional obscenity standards articulated in Miller.

Background

Paris Adult Theatre I and II were Atlanta theaters that showed sexually explicit films to paying customers. Their entrance displayed warnings that the theaters were for adults and that persons offended by nudity should not enter. Georgia officials brought civil actions seeking declarations that two films, “Magic Mirror” and “It All Comes Out in the End,” were obscene and injunctions against their exhibition. The films included simulated oral sex and group sexual intercourse.

The trial court viewed the films but denied an injunction. Although it assumed obscenity could be established, it concluded that showing the films to consenting adults was constitutionally permissible if adequate notice was given and minors were reasonably protected. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed, holding that the films were hard-core pornography outside First Amendment protection even if displayed only to willing adults. The U.S. Supreme Court vacated and remanded for reconsideration under the obscenity standards announced the same day in Miller v. California.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether Georgia’s civil procedure for declaring films obscene and enjoining their exhibition was constitutionally permissible.

Holding

Yes, in principle. A civil injunction procedure is permissible if it applies a constitutionally valid obscenity standard and includes safeguards against prior restraint.

Reasoning

The Court emphasized that Georgia had not stopped the theaters from showing the films before an adversary hearing and a final judicial determination. The initial ex parte order merely prevented destruction or removal of the films; it did not bar exhibition while the case was pending.

A civil proceeding can give exhibitors useful advance notice about whether material falls outside First Amendment protection before criminal charges are brought. On the record here, the procedure afforded the protections required in obscenity cases, provided that Georgia used a constitutionally acceptable substantive definition of obscenity.

Issue #2

Whether the State had to present expert testimony to prove that the films were obscene.

Holding

No. The films themselves could provide sufficient evidence for the obscenity determination.

Reasoning

Because the challenged films were placed in evidence and viewed by the court, they were the best evidence of their own content. The Court concluded that a trier of fact ordinarily does not need expert assistance to understand what explicit material depicts or to apply the governing obscenity standard.

The Court reserved the unusual situation in which material is aimed at an unfamiliar or highly specialized deviant audience and the trier of fact may lack a basis to assess its prurient appeal. That exceptional problem was not presented by these films.

Issue #3

Whether Georgia could enjoin the commercial exhibition of obscene films to consenting adults when minors and unwilling viewers were allegedly excluded.

Holding

Yes. Obscene material does not gain First Amendment or privacy protection merely because it is sold or displayed only to consenting adults in an adult theater.

Reasoning

The Court reaffirmed the premise that obscenity, as constitutionally defined, is not protected speech. It rejected the trial court’s view that adult consent alone immunizes commercial exhibition from state regulation.

A State may regulate commercial obscenity not only to protect children and unwilling passersby, but also to protect the public environment and the quality of community life. Legislatures may reasonably conclude that the commercial exploitation of explicit sexual material can debase community standards, affect the character of public commerce, and potentially threaten public safety, even without conclusive empirical proof of those effects.

The privacy right recognized in Stanley v. Georgia protected private possession of obscene material in the home. It did not create a right to obtain or watch obscene films in a theater open to the public for an admission fee. A public accommodation is fundamentally different from the home, marriage, family, or other intimate relationships protected by substantive privacy doctrine.

The Court also rejected the broader claim that conduct involving only consenting adults is categorically beyond state power. Commercial distribution and public exhibition of constitutionally unprotected obscene material remain within a State’s general authority to regulate commerce and protect the public welfare.

Issue #4

Whether the Georgia judgment could stand under the then-existing obscenity standard.

Holding

No. The judgment was vacated and remanded so that the Georgia Supreme Court could reconsider the case under Miller v. California.

Reasoning

The Court had issued Miller the same day to clarify the constitutional definition of obscenity. Under Miller, the State must regulate only specifically defined sexual conduct, and the material must satisfy the governing constitutional tests for prurient appeal, patent offensiveness, and lack of serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Because Georgia’s judgment rested on a pre-Miller formulation, the Court did not finally decide whether these particular films were obscene under the new standard. It instead allowed the Georgia courts to apply Miller to the governing state law and the films at issue.

Dissents

Justice Douglas

Reasoning

Justice Douglas rejected the foundational rule that obscenity is an exception to the First Amendment. In his view, obscenity judgments inevitably rest on personal taste, belief, and emotional reactions that cannot be reduced to reliable legal definitions. He also found no historical basis for treating obscenity as outside freedom of speech and press at the time of the founding.

Douglas maintained that offensive expression is not the same as conduct that government may punish. Individuals, parents, teachers, and religious leaders may discourage materials they find degrading, but government may not act as a censor of adults’ tastes, ideas, or beliefs merely because those in power find the expression offensive.

Because the theaters did not present a captive-audience problem, Douglas saw no constitutional basis for making theater operators criminally or civilly responsible for failing to shield adults from voluntarily viewed material. He warned that the Court’s approach could threaten booksellers, publishers, librarians, and the broad range of material held in libraries.

Justice Brennan

Reasoning

Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Stewart and Marshall, concluded that the Court should abandon the effort to identify a class of sexually oriented expression that may be wholly suppressed as obscene. He would have reversed because, on the Georgia Supreme Court’s assumptions, the films were shown only to informed, willing adults and not to juveniles or unwilling viewers.

Brennan argued that the Court’s obscenity doctrine had produced no stable or manageable standard. Terms such as prurient interest, patent offensiveness, and serious value depend heavily on individual outlook and cannot give distributors fair notice of what is prohibited. The resulting uncertainty chills protected expression and invites arbitrary enforcement.

He believed that Miller’s revised formulation did not solve the constitutional problem. Requiring courts to decide whether a depiction is sufficiently explicit, offensive, or valuable still forces judges to make unpredictable, case-by-case judgments about protected expression and leaves the Supreme Court with the institutional burden of independently reviewing the material.

Brennan accepted that States may have substantial interests in protecting minors and perhaps unwilling adults from intrusive exposure, though he reserved judgment on the exact scope of that authority. But those interests were not at stake on the Georgia court’s assumptions, and broader claims about morality, antisocial behavior, or a community’s moral tone were too speculative and ill-defined to justify the predictable harm that obscenity enforcement inflicts on First Amendment freedoms.

His approach would not prevent all regulation of sexually oriented materials. Governments could regulate the manner of distribution to protect legitimate interests, but absent juvenile distribution or obtrusive exposure to unconsenting adults, they could not wholly suppress material because of its allegedly obscene content.