Stanley v. Georgia

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Stanley v. Georgia
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 14–15, 1969 Decided April 7, 1969
Full case name	Robert Eli Stanley v. Georgia
Citations	394 U.S. 557 (more) 89 S. Ct. 1243; 22 L. Ed. 2d 542
Argument	Oral argument
Reargument	Reargument
Case history
Prior	Stanley v. State, 224 Ga. 259, 161 S.E.2d 309 (1968); probable jurisdiction noted, 393 U.S. 819 (1968).
Holding
The First Amendment, as applied to the States under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits making mere private possession of obscene material a crime. Supreme Court of Georgia reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Abe Fortas · Thurgood Marshall
Case opinions
Majority	Marshall, joined by Warren, Black, Douglas, Harlan, Fortas
Concurrence	Black
Concurrence	Stewart (in result), joined by Brennan, White
Laws applied
U.S. Const. Amend. I, XIV

Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that helped to establish an implied "right to privacy" in U.S. law in the form of mere possession of obscene materials.^[1]

The home of Robert Eli Stanley, a suspected bookmaker, was searched by police with a federal warrant to seize betting paraphernalia. As they found none, they instead seized three reels of pornographic material from a desk drawer in an upstairs bedroom, and later charged Stanley with the possession of obscene materials, a crime under Georgia law. The conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court of Georgia.

In the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote the unanimous opinion that overturned the earlier decision and invalidated all state laws that forbade the private possession of materials judged obscene on the grounds of the First and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution.^[2][3] Justices Potter Stewart, William J. Brennan, and Byron White contributed a joint concurring opinion with a separate opinion having to do with the Fourth Amendment search and seizure provision. Justice Hugo Black also concurred expressing the view that all obscenity laws were unconstitutional.

The case also established an implied right to pornography, but not an absolute right. In Osborne v. Ohio (1990), the Supreme Court upheld a law which criminalized the possession of child pornography.