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| The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, protected a movie theater manager from being prosecuted for possessing and showing a film that was not obscene. |
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| Florida statute prohibits an unmarried interracial couple from habitually living in and occupying the same room in the nighttime. The same conduct when engaged in by members of the same race, is not prohibited. This is in violation of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment and is, therefore, unconstitutional. |
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| A Connecticut law criminalizing the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy. |
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| The Court declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby ending all race-based legal restriction on marriage in the United States. |
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| A Massachusetts law criminalizing the use of contraceptives by unmarried couples violated the right to equal protection. Judgment of theCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed |
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The Defendant, Miller’s (Defendant) conviction for mailing advertisements for “adult” books to unwilling recipients was vacated and remanded in an effort to shift the burden of obscenity determinations to the state and local courts.
Synopsis of Rule of Law: In determining whether speech is obscene, the basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards” would find the material, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest of sex, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literacy, artistic, political, or scientific value. |
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A Texas law criminalizing abortion except where the procedure is necessary to “save the life of the mother” and without regard to the state of pregnancy was found by the Supreme Court of the United States to violate due process.
Synopsis of Rule of Law: The right of privacy protects a married or unmarried woman’s liberty to choose an abortion, but this right must be considered against important state interests in regulation such as the stage of the pregnancy. |
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| FCC v. Pacifica Foundation |
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| The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action in 1978, by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene". The Court accepted as compelling the government's interests in 1) shielding children from potentially offensive material, and 2) ensuring that unwanted speech does not enter one's home. The Court stated that the FCC had the authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience, and gave the FCC broad leeway to determine what constituted indecency in different contexts. |
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A Georgia law criminalizing sodomy was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States despite its effect of outlawing consensual homosexual sexual conduct in private residences.
Synopsis of Rule of Law: The federal Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy. |
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Colorado voters adopted Amendment two to their State Constitution, precluding the government from adopting measures that would protect homosexuals from discrimination. The state trial court enjoined enforcement of the act.
Synopsis of Rule of Law: A bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest. |
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| Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union |
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| §223(a)(1)(B), §223(a)(2), §223(d) of the CDA are unconstitutional and unenforceable, except for cases of obscenity or child pornography, because they abridge the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment and are substantially overbroad. The Internet is entitled to the full protection given to media like the print press; the special factors justifying government regulation of broadcast media do not apply. |
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Police found two men engaged in sexual conduct, in their home, and they were arrested under a Texas statute that prohibited such conduct between two men.
Synopsis of Rule of Law: While homosexual conduct is not a fundamental right, intimate sexual relationships between consenting adults are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. |
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