Butler v. State of Michigan, 16
| Court | United States Supreme Court |
| Citation | 77 S.Ct. 524,1 L.Ed.2d 412,352 U.S. 380 |
| Docket Number | No. 16,16 |
| Parties | Alfred E. BUTLER, Appellant, v. STATE OF MICHIGAN |
| Decision Date | 25 February 1957 |
v.
STATE OF MICHIGAN.
Mr. Manuel Lee Robbins, New York City, for the appellant.
Mr. Edmund E. Shepherd, Detroit, Mich., for the appellee.
Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
This appeal from a judgment of conviction entered by the Recorder's Court of the City of Detroit, Michigan
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challenges the constitutionality of the following provision, § 343, of the Michigan Penal Code, Comp.Laws Supp.1954, § 750.343:
'Any person who shall import, print, publish, sell, possess with the intent to sell, design, prepare, loan, give away, distribute or offer for sale, any book, magazine, newspaper, writing, pamphlet, ballad, printed paper, print, picture, drawing, photograph, publication or other thing, including any recordings, containing obscene, immoral, lewd or lascivious language, or obscene, immoral, lewd or lascivious prints, pictures, figures or descriptions, tending to incite minors to violent or depraved or immoral acts, manifestly tending to the corruption of the morals of youth, or shall introduce into any family, school or place of education or shall buy, procure, receive or have in his possession, any such book, pamphlet, magazine, newspaper, writing, ballad, printed paper, print, picture, drawing, photograph, publication or other thing, either for the purpose of sale, exhibition, loan or circulation, or with intent to introduce the same into any family, school or place of education, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.'
Appellant was charged with its violation for selling to a police officer what the trial judge characterized as 'a book containing obscene, immoral, lewd, lascivious language, or descriptions, tending to incite minors to violent or depraved or immoral acts, manifestly tending to the corruption of the morals of youth.' Appellant moved to dismiss the proceeding on the claim that application of § 343 unduly restricted freedom of speech as protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in that the statute (1) prohibited distribution of a book to the general public on the basis of the undesirable influence it may have upon youth; (2) damned a book and
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proscribed its sale merely because of some isolated passages that appeared objectionable when divorced from the book as a whole; and (3) failed to provide a sufficiently definite standard of...
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