Hallmark Productions, Inc. v. Carroll
| Decision Date | 13 March 1956 |
| Docket Number | 4366 |
| Citation | 121 A.2d 584,384 Pa. 348 |
| Parties | HALLMARK PRODUCTIONS, Inc., an Ohio Corporation, v. Edna R. CARROLL, John Clyde Fisher and Beatrice Z. Miller, as Members of the Pennsylvania State Board of Censors. Appeal of PENNSYLVANIA STATE BOARD OF CENSORS. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued January 6, 1956
Appeal, No. 345, Jan. T., 1954, from order of Court of Common Pleas No. 2 of Philadelphia County, June T., 1953, No. 9265 in case of Hallmark Productions, Inc. v. Edna R. Carroll John Clyde Fisher and Beatrice Z. Miller, of Pennsylvania State Board of Censors. Order affirmed.
Appeal by producer from decision of Board of Censors refusing certificate of approval for motion picture film.
Order entered sustaining appeal, opinion by LEWIS, P.J Commonwealth appealed.
Order affirmed.
Lois Forer, Deputy Attorney General, with her Elmer T. Bolla, Abraham J. Levy, Special Deputy Attorney General, Harry Stambaugh, Special Deputy Attorney General and Herbert B. Cohen, Attorney General, for appellant.
Edwin P. Rome, for appellee.
Before STERN, C.J., STEARNE, JONES, BELL, CHIDSEY, MUSMANNO AND ARNOLD, JJ.
Hallmark Productions, Inc., submitted to the Pennsylvania State Board of Censors for approval a motion picture film which presented the story of a dope peddler and the manner in which he enticed innocent people in the use and sale of marijuana cigarettes. The Board concluded that the film was "indecent and immoral and, in the judgment of the Board, tended to debase and corrupt morals," and therefore disapproved it. Court of Common Pleas No. 2 of Philadelphia County reversed the order of the Board and the latter now appeals from that reversal.
No question is here raised as to the merits or demerits of the film or whether the Board of Censors was guilty of an abuse of discretion in refusing to issue a certificate of approval. The sole issue presented is whether the Motion Picture Censorship Act of May 15, 1915, P.L. 534, as amended by the Act of May 8, 1929, P.L. 1655, is unconstitutional, either because it is so vague and indefinite in its terms as to offend the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, or because it abridges freedom of speech in contravention of the First the Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and the free communication of thoughts and opinions in violation of Article I, § 7, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania.
The censorship of motion picture films in this Commonwealth goes back almost to the inception of the industry. The 1915 Act, as amended, provides (§ 6) that "The board [of censors] shall examine or supervise the examinations of all films, reels, or views to be exhibited or used in Pennsylvania; and shall approve such films, reels, or views which are moral and proper; and shall disapprove such as are sacrilegious, obscene, indecent, or immoral, or such as tend, in the judgment of the board, to debase or corrupt morals." From any elimination or disapproval of a film, reel, or view ordered by the board there is given a right of appeal to the Court of Common Pleas of the proper county.
A New York statute provided for the banning of a motion picture film if it or a part thereof was "obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, sacrilegious, or of such a character that its exhibition would tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime." The New York State Board of Regents determined that a certain film examined by them was "sacrilegious" and ordered a rescission of the license to exhibit it which had been previously given. An affirmation of that order by the New York Court of Appeals was reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States: Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, Commissioner of Education of New York, 343 U.S. 495. The appellant there argued that the statute was a violation of the right of free speech, and also that the term "sacrilegious" was so vague and indefinite as to constitute a denial of due process. The court held (p. 502) that "expression by means of motion pictures is included within the free speech and free press guaranty of the First and Fourteenth Amendments," but hastened to add (pp. 502, 503) that While the Court stated (p. 503) that "This Court recognized many years ago that ... a previous restraint is a form of infringement upon freedom of expression to be especially condemned," it apparently did not base its decision on that ground but on the conclusion that the term "sacrilegious" did not provide a sufficiently definite standard for the guidance of a censor and therefore vested in him an almost unlimited restraining control over motion pictures. The Court's opinion ends with the statement (pp. 505, 506) that In a concurring opinion Mr. Justice REED emphasized this limited scope of the decision by saying (pp. 506, 507) "Assuming that a state may establish a system for the licensing of motion pictures, an issue not foreclosed by the Court's opinion, our duty requires us to examine the facts of the refusal of a license in each case to determine whether the principles of the First Amendment have been honored."
In Gelling v. State, 157 Tex.Cr.Rep. 516, 247 S.W.2d 95, an ordinance was held to be constitutional which authorized a local board of censors to refused permission for the exhibition of a motion picture when, in the opinion of the board, it was "of such character as to be prejudicial to the best interests of the people of said city." On appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States the judgment was reversed ( Gelling v. Texas, 343 U.S. 960) per curiam, citing the Burstyn case, 343 U.S. 495, and Winters v. New York, 333 U.S. 507. Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, concurring, stated that in his opinion the ordinance offered the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment on the score of indefiniteness, but Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, also concurring, went further and condemned the evil of prior restraint in general as a violation of the First Amendment.
In Superior Films, Inc. v. Department of Education, Division of Film Censorship, 159 Ohio St. 315, 112 N.E.2d 311, a statute of Ohio provided that "Only such films as are in the judgment and discretion of the board of censors of a moral, educational or amusing and harmless character shall be passed and approved by such board." The Supreme Court of the State, after analyzing the opinion and decision in the Burstyn case, concluded (pp. 327, 328, N.E. p. 318) that "although a motion picture film may not be rejected because of 'sacrilegious' expressions or portrayals, there still remains a limited field in which decency and morals may be protected from the impact of an offending motion picture film by prior restraint under proper criteria ... As we view it, the United States Supreme Court has not ipso facto taken away all community control of moving pictures by censorship, and this court will not do so under the claim of complete unconstitutionality of censorship laws." The court held that while the criteria by which films were to be judged under the terms of the statute could doubtless have been made more definite their connotation was sufficiently clear to permit of their valid enforcement.
In Commercial Pictures Corporation v. Board of Regents of University of State of New York, 305 N.Y. 336, 113 N.E.2d 502, the Court of Appeals of New York had before it for consideration the same statute of the State as was involved in the Burstyn case. A picture had been rejected by the authorities on the ground that it was "immoral" and "would tend to corrupt morals." The Court said (p. 346, N.E. p. 507) that Accordingly the Court held that these terms provided a standard adequate to satisfy the requirements of due process, and it therefore affirmed the disapproval of the picture by the administrative body.
Both the Superior Films, Inc. case and the Commercial Pictures Corporation case were appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States and both were there reversed (346 U.S. 587) per curiam, citing merely the Burstyn case. Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, concurring in an opinion with which Mr. Justice BLACK agreed, stated that he could not accept the argument that the government might establish censorship over moving pictures, that it was inconceivable to him that plays for the theatre or for television could be pre-censored, and that (p. 589) "The same result in the case of motion pictures necessarily follows as a consequence of our holding in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495, 502, that motion pictures are within the free speech and free press guaranty of the First and Fourteenth Amendments."
Following these decisions and pronouncements of the United States Supreme Court cases involving the same questions have arisen in various...
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