| United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued January 19, 1972 Reargued November 7, 1972 Decided June 21, 1973 | |
| Full case name | United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Super 8MM. Film et al |
| Docket no. | 70-002 |
| Citations | 413 U.S. 123 (more) 93 S. Ct. 2665; 37 L. Ed. 2d 500 |
| Argument | Oral argument |
| Reargument | Reargument |
| Opinion announcement | Opinion announcement |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Judgement for claimant, unreported (C.D. Cal.) |
| Holding | |
| Reach of previous holding that possession of obscene material in home for personal use does not extend to import of same material; obscenity of material at issue to be re-adjudicated under newly established Miller v. California standard. Central District of California vacated and remanded | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Burger, joined by White, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist |
| Dissent | Douglas |
| Dissent | Brennan, joined by Stewart, Marshall |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. I | |
United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S. 123 (1973), was an in rem case decided by the United States Supreme Court that considered the question of whether the First Amendment required that citizens be allowed to import obscene material for their personal and private use at home, which was already held to be protected several years earlier. By a 5–4 margin, the Court held that it did not.
This case was very similar to United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, a case the Court had heard two years earlier. It began when the films, and other visual and textual material with predominant explicit sexual content, were seized by customs agents from Paladini, a California man returning from Mexico. Federal law at the time prohibited the import of any material that might be judged to be obscene. Paladini challenged the forfeiture proceedings the government initiated, on the grounds that he intended the material for his personal use in the privacy of his own home, an activity the Court had ruled was protected under the First Amendment in Stanley v. Georgia. Thus, he argued, he had a right to obtain such material abroad for that purpose.
After a district court panel agreed with him and declared the statute unconstitutional, the case went to the Supreme Court directly. Its opinion was one of four obscenity cases handed down, along with Miller v. California, in which the Court announced a new standard of obscenity for the first time since Roth v. United States 17 years before. By a 5–4 margin, the Court held that the statute was constitutional, but it also ordered the district court to review the material under its new standard and consider whether it was still obscene.
Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote for the majority, reaffirming a similar holding in Thirty-seven Photographs that the right to possess something in one's home which might otherwise be unlawful outside of it did not give rise to a right to import it. William O. Douglas wrote a lengthy dissent, responding as much to the majority holding in Miller, arguing that history showed obscenity laws were not vigorously enforced at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted and thus could not be justified on traditionalist grounds. William Brennan wrote a shorter dissent, joined by the other two justices, calling the statute overbroad.
© MMXXIII Rich X Search. We shall prevail. All rights reserved. Rich X Search