Redrup v. New York (1966)
- Docket
- 3
- Decided
- 1966-01-01
- Category
- General
Summary
Question: Do petitioners' obscenity convictions violate their First Amendment rights? Conclusion: Yes. In a per curiam decision, the court reversed the judgments of the respective lower courts, holding that while members of the majority advocated a variety of legal approaches to obscenity cases, the judgments at hand did not withstand scrutiny under any of the available approaches. The court specified that two of its members argue that the court has no authority to control publications on obscenity grounds, a third member limits the state's authority to a specific and readily identifiable class of material, and other members limit the state's authority to prurient material that is offensive to the specific community and has no redeeming social value. Yet another justice did not view social value as an independent factor. The court held that the judgments failed all of these tests. Justice John Harlan, joined by Justice Thomas Clark, dissented, noting that Redrup v. New York and Austin v. Kentucky originally raised questions regarding the scienter requirement in obscenity prosecutions; Gent v. Arkansas was granted review to answer questions of vagueness and prior restraint under an Arkansas anti-obscenity statute. He argued that the majority decided a question that was not before it and in doing so avoided the questions of scienter, vagueness and prior restraint actually raised by the cases.