People v. Lathers

• Decision Date: 04 June 1923
• Docket Number: No. 120.,120.
• Citation: 223 Mich. 92,193 N.W. 903
• Parties: PEOPLE v. LATHERS.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

223 Mich. 92

193 N.W. 903

PEOPLE

v.LATHERS.

No. 120.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

June 4, 1923.

Exceptions from Circuit Court, Oceana County; John Vanderwerp, Judge.

Swift Lathers was found guilty by a jury of publishing a paper containing obscene matter in violation of Comp. Laws 1915, § 15474, and he excepts before sentence. Verdict set aside, and new trial granted.

Argued before WIEST, C. J., and FELLOWS, McDONALD, CLARK, BIRD, SHARPE, and STEERE, JJ. Earl C. Pugsley, Pros. Atty., of Hart, for the People.

Swift Lathers, of Mears, for appellant.

STEERE, J.

Defendant edits and publishes in the village of Mears, Oceana county, Mich., a pamphlet-sized newspaper called ‘The Mears Newz.’ He is charged in the information filed against him with violating the provisions of section 15474 of the Compiled Laws of 1915, which makes it an offense punished by fine or imprisonment to print, publish, sell, or distribute any pamphlet or printed paper containing obscene language, pictures, figures, or descriptions manifestly tending to corrupt the morals of youth, or to introduce into any family or have in possession any such pamphlet, printed paper, etc., for the purpose of sale, exhibition, or circulation with intent to introduce the same into any family, school, or place of education.

It is charged that on January 5, 1922, defendant printed, published, sold, and distributed a copy of the Mears Newz containing obscene language, figures, and descriptions of a nature manifestly tending to corrupt the morals of youth, which are set out at large in the information. On the trial it was shown that copies of the issue of the Mears Newz of that date contained the alleged indecent items, and that copies were sold, and at least two copies were received through the post office by subscribers to the paper; one being a married man with a family, who testified that he received the same through the post office as he received any other mail.

Defendant took the stand as a witness in his own behalf, and ‘as bearing upon the question of the absence of any immoral intent’ delivered an eulogistic autobiography to the effect that in his childhood he did not attend school until he was 9 years of age but was privately taught at home with a view to his becoming a clergyman, that nevertheless his educational advancement was such that when 17 years of age he was through high school and in college with credits for advance standing for one-fourth of his course in college, and when 19 years of age he was a superintendent of schools, licensed to teach in any school of the state, and followed that profession for some years; but his tastes were strictly literary, and instead of aspiring to teaching or preaching his ambition was to be a poet, to which end he told the jury that he made search for ‘a peaceful, country village where I might gain the great poise and perspective vision that a poet must have.’ Having discovered Mears with its ‘exhilarating winds that blow from the big lake,’ he thought it would be an idealic spot for his work as a poet, and said that he did there find ‘inspiration in the people as well as in birches and dunes and running waters. I was a bookworm and a recluse, and I must come out of it. So I started the Mears Newz and became an editor, because as an editor I could go and see everybody and know everybody, and study life intensivery because I had the open sesame to every door. So for several years I have been going into the factories to talk to the workers, into the orchards to talk with the girls on the stepladders, into the schools to talk with the children on the playgrounds, and into the homes of the people.’ He also commented on his abstemious habits in life with some detail, to the effect that he was a man without guile or vices, either small or great, and said he so lived because ‘as a writer I wanted to have a clear-ringing brain, so I could be keenly and intensely alert and write with great force. * * * I wanted to be a poet and wanted to develop within me the poetic emotions to the highest possible stage of development. * * * I have never used any of the common indecent words of life in my conversation. Not only do I not speak them, but I do not allow my mind to form a mental image of them. To think only the brightest and highest thoughts has been my religion ever since I can remember.’

On cross-examination he testified that the charged indecent items were furnished him by Bert Post and only printed in a comparatively few copies of the paper as a piece of job printing at the solicitation of Post, to whom defendant was under obligations, but by accident a few copies were mailed. Personally...