Facts
- Police obtained a warrant to search Robert Eli Stanley’s home for evidence of alleged bookmaking.
- During the search, officers found three reels of eight-millimeter film in a desk drawer in an upstairs bedroom.
- Officers set up a projector and screen in an upstairs living room, viewed the films, and concluded they were obscene.
- The officers seized the films and arrested Stanley for possessing obscene matter.
- Stanley was indicted and convicted under a Georgia statute criminalizing knowing possession of obscene material, without any allegation of intent to sell, expose, or circulate.
- The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed, holding that intent to distribute was not an essential element of the offense.
Issues
- Whether the First Amendment, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, permits a state to criminalize the mere private possession of obscene material in a person’s home.
Decision
- The Supreme Court reversed the judgment and remanded.
- The Court held that a state may not constitutionally make mere private possession of obscene material in the home a crime.
- The Court distinguished prior obscenity cases as addressing public distribution and regulation, not possession in the home.
- The Court rejected the state’s arguments that criminalizing possession could be justified by predicted antisocial conduct or by enforcement needs tied to prohibitions on distribution.
- The Court limited its holding to private possession and did not restrict state authority to regulate the production, sale, or distribution of obscene materials.
Legal Principles
- The First Amendment protects the right to receive information and ideas, regardless of perceived social value.
- The Constitution protects against governmental intrusion into personal privacy and mental autonomy within the home.
- Obscenity doctrine allowing regulation of distribution does not, by itself, authorize criminal punishment for mere private possession in the home.
- A state may not criminalize private possession on the theory that it might lead to antisocial conduct or as a purported necessary incident to a distribution-control scheme.
Conclusion
The Court held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit a state from punishing a person for merely possessing obscene materials in the privacy of the home, while leaving intact the state’s power to regulate the commercial production and distribution of obscenity.