Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Adoption of obscenity laws in the United States at the federal level in 1873 was largely due to the efforts of Anthony Comstock, who created and led the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Comstock's intense efforts led to the passage of an anti-obscenity statute known as the Comstock Act which made it a crime to distribute "obscene ...
The Commission was established to study and report on: [1] "Constitutional and definitional problems related to obscenity controls." "Traffic in and distribution of obscene and pornographic materials." "The effects of such material, particularly on youth, and their relationship to crime and other antisocial conduct."
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957), along with its companion case Alberts v.California, was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which redefined the constitutional test for determining what constitutes obscene material unprotected by the First Amendment. [1]
These common-law ideas of obscenity formed the original basis of obscenity law in other common law countries, such as the United States. The classic definition of criminal obscenity is if it "tends to deprave and corrupt", stated in 1868 by Lord Justice Cockburn, in Regina v. Hicklin, now known as the Hicklin test.
The First Amendment puts protection for expressive content in terms that are both sweeping and absolute: "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" [2] Despite this broad protection, the roots of U.S. attempts to legally suppress obscenity extend back to the English common law offense of obscene libel and censorship of stage plays by the Master of the Revels.
The Miller test, also called the three-prong obscenity test, is the United States Supreme Court's test for determining whether speech or expression can be labeled obscene, in which case it is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and can be prohibited.
Determines which laws Congress intended to apply to any given case; Determines whether a law is unconstitutional. (The power of judicial review is not expressly granted in the Constitution, but was held by the judiciary to be implicit in the constitutional structure in Marbury v. Madison (1803).) Determines how Congress meant the law to apply ...
Amendment XX, Section 4 of the United States Constitution: The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a ...