Butler v. State of Michigan

Decision Date25 February 1957
Docket NumberNo. 16,16
Citation77 S.Ct. 524,1 L.Ed.2d 412,352 U.S. 380
PartiesAlfred E. BUTLER, Appellant, v. STATE OF MICHIGAN
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

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 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 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 guilt. After hearing the evidence, the trial judge denied the motion, and, in an oral opinion, held that '* * * the defendant is guilty because he sold a book in the City of Detroit containing this language (the passages deemed offensive), and also because the Court feels that even viewing the book as a whole, it (the objectionable language) was not necessary to the proper development of the theme of the book nor of the conflict expressed therein.' Appellant was fined $100.

Pressing his federal claims, appellant applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Michigan. Although the State consented to the granting of the application 'because the issues involved in this case are of great public interest, and because it appears that further clarification of the language of * * * (the statute) is necessary,' leave to appeal was denied. In view of this denial, the appeal is here from the Recorder's Court of Detroit. We noted probable...

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224 cases
  • People ex rel. Busch v. Projection Room Theater
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court (California)
    • 1 Junio 1976
    ...only to those works that, in the personal view of a single judge, are not offensive. 6 Nearly 20 years ago, in Butler v. Michigan (1957) 352 U.S. 380, 77 S.Ct. 524, 1 L.Ed.2d 412, the United States Supreme Court overturned a state obscenity statute that prohibited the dissemination of any b......
  • First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. Los Angeles County
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court (California)
    • 24 Abril 1957
    ...a bona fide danger, the state has no power to embark on an unnecessary wholesale suppression of liberty. See Butler v. State of Michigan, 352 U.S. 380, 77 S.Ct. 524, 1 L.Ed.2d 412. The majority opinion, however, invokes the rule that the government may attain a legitimate objective through ......
  • People v. Luros, Cr. 13153
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court (California)
    • 18 Febrero 1971
    ...the reasoning underlying the People's contention was rejected long ago by the United States Supreme Court in Butler v. Michigan (1957) 352 U.S. 380, 77 S.Ct. 524, 1 L.Ed.2d 412, in which case the court overturned a state obscenity statute that prohibited the dissemination of First Amendment......
  • Katzev v. County of Los Angeles
    • United States
    • California Court of Appeals
    • 25 Febrero 1959
    ...and proscribes publications which are outside the scope of the evil sought to be corrected. Reliance is placed on Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380, 77 S.Ct. 524, 1 L.Ed.2d 412, in which the court invalidated a statute forbidding the sale to anyone of magazines tending to incite minors to vi......
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17 books & journal articles
  • Filth, filtering, and the First Amendment: ruminations on public libraries' use of Internet filtering software.
    • United States
    • Federal Communications Law Journal Vol. 53 No. 2, March 2001
    • 1 Marzo 2001
    ...Group, 529 U.S. at 881; Sable Comms., 492 U.S. at 126-28; Ginsberg v. State of New York, 390 U.S. 629, 634-35 (1968); Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380 (1957); see also Bolger v. Youngs Drug Prods. Corp., 463 U.S. 60, 74-75 (1983); see Pacifica Found., 438 U.S. 758 (1978) (Powell, J., concur......
  • Freedom of speech, permissible tailoring and transcending strict scrutiny.
    • United States
    • University of Pennsylvania Law Review Vol. 144 No. 6, June 1996
    • 1 Junio 1996
    ...to discern) the theoretical meaning of free speech, and not just on an inquiry into compelling state interests or narrow tailoring. (124) 352 U.S. 380 (1957). (125) 492 U.S. 115 (1989). (126) Butler, 352 U.S. at 884. The word "arbitrarily" might be read to suggest that nonarbitrary curtailm......
  • Table of Cases
    • United States
    • The Path of Constitutional Law Suplemmentary Materials
    • 1 Enero 2007
    ...1339, 1496-97 Butler, United States v., 297 U.S. 1, 56 S.Ct. 312, 80 L.Ed. 477 (1936), 439, 702, 719, 741, 755 Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380, 77 S.Ct. 524, 1 L.Ed.2d 412 (1957), Butler v. Perry, 240 U.S. 328, 36 S.Ct. 258, 60 L.Ed. 672 (1916), 1066 Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 98 S.Ct......
  • Censorship by proxy: the First Amendment, Internet intermediaries, and the problem of the weakest link.
    • United States
    • University of Pennsylvania Law Review Vol. 155 No. 1, November 2006
    • 1 Noviembre 2006
    ...be "narrowly drawn to prevent the supposed evil." E.g., Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 307 (1940). (168) Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380, 383 (169) Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 525-26 (1958). See, e.g., NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 916 n.50 (1982) (discussing......
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