## Facts

- Los Angeles Municipal Code § 41.01.1 made it unlawful for any person to possess any obscene or indecent book in a place of business where books are sold or kept for sale.
- Eleazar Smith, a Los Angeles bookstore proprietor, was prosecuted after an allegedly obscene book was found in his shop.
- The municipal court and the Appellate Department of the Superior Court construed the ordinance to impose strict (absolute) criminal liability.
- Under that construction, the offense required only possession of a book later found obscene, with no requirement that the bookseller knew the book’s contents.
- Smith was convicted and sentenced; the conviction was affirmed on appeal within the state system.

## Issues

1. Whether imposing criminal liability on a bookseller for possessing obscene material without proof of scienter violates the freedom of the press as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed.
- As construed to impose absolute criminal liability without scienter, the ordinance violated freedom of the press protected against state action by the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The Court reasoned that strict liability would induce booksellers to self-censor and thereby restrict public access to constitutionally protected material.
- Concurring opinions agreed with reversal on varying First Amendment and due process grounds.
- A dissent would have upheld the ordinance as a permissible exercise of state police power over obscenity.

## Legal Principles

- Although obscenity is not protected speech, the government may not regulate in a way that effectively suppresses protected expression through indirect burdens on distribution.
- Criminal sanctions on booksellers for obscenity require some element of scienter (knowledge of the content); absolute liability creates an impermissible chilling effect.
- Enforcement difficulty or administrative convenience does not justify dispensing with scienter when the result is a substantial burden on access to protected books.

## Conclusion

The Court held that a jurisdiction may not make a bookseller strictly criminally liable for possessing an obscene book without proof of knowledge of its contents, because such a regime pressures distributors to restrict lawful materials and unconstitutionally burdens freedom of the press.


Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147 (1959)