State v. Regan

• Citation: 640 P.2d 725,97 Wn.2d 47
• Decision Date: 11 February 1982
• Docket Number: No. 47934-8,47934-8
• Parties: The STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. R. N. REGAN, and Michael A. J. Clinton, Appellants.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

Page 47

97 Wn.2d 47

640 P.2d 725

The STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. R. N. REGAN, and Michael A. J. Clinton, Appellants.

No. 47934-8.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

Feb. 11, 1982.

Victor Hoff, Seattle, for appellants.

Jeffrey C. Sullivan, Yakima County Prosecutor, David Waterbury, Deputy Prosecutor, Yakima, for respondent.

WILLIAMS, Justice.

Michael Clinton, an employee of the Yakima Magazine Center (Center), and R. N. Regan, the president of J-R Distributors, Inc., which owns the Center, were convicted by a jury of two counts of selling obscene materials. They appealed these convictions to the Court of Appeals, Division Three. Pursuant to RCW 2.06.030(d) and RAP 4.2, the Court of Appeals certified the case to us. We now vacate those convictions.

Yakima police officers purchased two 8 millimeter films from Michael Clinton. These films, entitled "True Lust" and "Sixteen Inches of Meat", became the basis for a warrant to search the magazine store and seize "all films and multiple copies of films, and all video cassettes offered for sale". Supp. Clerk's Papers, at 22. Pursuant to that warrant, the Center was searched and seizures were made.

Clinton, because of the two purchases, was subsequently charged with two counts of selling obscene material. R. N. Regan, as president of J-R Distributors, Inc., was charged with the same two sales plus possession with intent to sell three other films. The latter charges were the product of three films seized during the search.

Appellants argued that the seizure of evidence pursuant to the warrant was an unlawful violation of their Fourth Amendment rights, and moved to suppress the seized evidence as well as the purchased films. As for the materials seized pursuant to the warrant, the trial court granted the suppression motion because it found that the warrants "did not particularly describe the property to be seized". Supp. Clerk's Papers, at 23. The trial court refused to suppress the films lawfully purchased prior to the warrant. On the basis of the lawfully purchased films, a jury convicted appellants of two sales of obscene materials-a gross misdemeanor under RCW 9.68.010. ¹ Appellants' primary contention is that our authoritative construction of Washington's obscenity statute, RCW 9.68.010, in State v. J-R Distributors, Inc., 82 Wash.2d 584, 512 P.2d 1049 (1973), is unconstitutionally overbroad both on its face and as it applies to them. Although this issue was raised for the first time on appeal, we have uniformly reviewed such issues when they relate to some constitutional right. State v. Theroff, 95 Wash.2d 385, 391, 622 P.2d 1240 (1980); In re Lee, 95 Wash.2d 357, 363-64, 623 P.2d 687 (1980); State v. Green, 94 Wash.2d 216, 231, 616 P.2d 628 (1980); State v. Cox, 94 Wash.2d 170, 173, 615 P.2d 465 (1980). We now reaffirm that important principle.

In J-R Distributors, we provided an authoritative construction of RCW 9.68.010 by incorporating the 3-prong obscenity test of Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 2614, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973), into the statute. In so doing, we set out the Miller guidelines in full:

(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.... (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

(Italics ours.) State v. J-R Distributors, Inc., supra, 82 Wash.2d at 594, 512 P.2d 1049 quoting from Miller v. California, supra 413 U.S. at 24, 93 S.Ct. at 2614. After the above quoted authoritative construction of RCW 9.68.010 we went on to state the following clarification, which became the basis of instruction No. 10 in the case before us:

Photographs, pictures and drawings which portray in a patently offensive way sexual conduct such as ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, or which depict acts of masturbation, fellatio, cunnilingus, lewd exhibition of the genitals and sexual relations between humans and animals are "obscene" if, taken as a whole, the subject matter does not have a serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

(Italics ours.) J-R Distributors, 82 Wash.2d at 601-02, 512 P.2d 1049. Although we required a portrayal of sexual conduct in a way that is "patently offensive" at the beginning of the above quotation, the remaining language requires only that the jury find "acts of masturbation, fellatio, cunnilingus, lewd exhibition of the genitals (or) sexual relations between humans and animals" were portrayed in the films at issue. This does not comply with the standard articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Miller, which requires the trier of fact to determine that such acts are "patently offensive" to be obscene. Thus, our authoritative construction of RCW 9.68.010 in J-R Distributors failed to accurately reflect the Miller guidelines, even in 1973. Since instruction No. 10 tracks the above language from J-R Distributors almost word for word, it suffers from the same defect. ²

It is a familiar rule of statutory construction that when a statute has once been construed by the highest court of the state, that construction is as much a part of the statute as if it were originally written into it. Yakima Valley Bank & Trust Co. v. Yakima County, 149 Wash. 552, 556, 271 P. 820 (1928). See also Windust v. Department of Labor & Indus., 52 Wash.2d 33, 54-55, 323 P.2d 241 (1958). We must therefore examine the language in J-R Distributors to determine if our authoritative construction of RCW 9.68.010 was, itself, constitutionally overbroad as the appellants assert.

Addressing overbreadth claims serves the beneficial function of eliminating the "chilling effect" on privileged exercises of First Amendment rights, whether or not the party challenging the statute has engaged in privileged conduct. NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 432, 83 S.Ct. 328, 337, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (1963). See generally Note, The First Amendment Overbreadth Doctrine, 83 Harv.L.Rev. 844 (1970). The J-R Distributors construction of RCW 9.68.010 is overbroad because it proscribes not only patently offensive sexual conduct, but conduct which is not patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards. Since the statute reaches conduct which is potentially protected, appellants have standing to challenge the statute's overbreadth even if their activity is within the permissible scope of the statute and even if such constitutional overbreadth can be considered "harmless error" as applied to them. Lewis v. New Orleans, 415 U.S. 130, 133-34, 94 S.Ct. 970, 972, 39 L.Ed.2d 214 (1974). However, because conduct and not merely speech is involved here, appellants must prove the statute's overbreadth is not only real, but substantial as well, judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep. Ward v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 767, 776, 97 S.Ct. 2085, 2090, 52 L.Ed.2d 738 (1977); Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 615, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 2917, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973).

We find the failure to include the requirement of patent offensiveness in J-R Distributors and instruction No. 10 to be both real and substantial. The erroneous construction of RCW 9.68.010 in J-R Distributors and language in instruction No. 10, which fail to require sexual conduct to be patently offensive, go to the heart of this case since it is undisputed that acts of masturbation, fellatio, and cunnilingus were depicted in the films. We cannot determine whether the jury convicted appellants for selling obscene materials because they were "patently offensive" or simply because any of the above sexual acts were present in the films. The failure to instruct the jury that they had to find the sexual acts depicted in the films to be "patently offensive" means that they could not have convicted appellants under the minimum constitutional standards of Miller and Smith. Without inclusion of the phrase "patently offensive", Miller's second guideline becomes an objective standard whereby the jury is relieved of its duty to apply contemporary community standards. The Tennessee Supreme Court recently invalidated the Tennessee obscenity statute because it failed to require that sexual conduct be found "patently offensive". In striking down that statute, the court noted the following:

The problem with the Tennessee Act's definition is that it clearly means that a detailed description of sex, in any context, is per se "patently offensive." The result of that definition would be to eliminate from consideration by the trier of fact the issue of whether or not a description or portrayal, etc., of sex was or was not "patently offensive." Thus, the definition nullifies the second prong of the Miller test. The Roth (v. U.S.) Court made it clear that the portrayal of sex in art, literature and scientific works is not, in and of itself, sufficient reason to deny first amendment protection to such material. 354 U.S. (476) at 487, 77 S.Ct. 1304 (at 1310, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498).

The definition of "patently offensive" is in direct conflict with Roth and Miller, encroaches upon federal and state freedom of speech and press guarantees and is constitutionally infirm.

Leech v. American Booksellers Ass'n, Inc., 582 S.W.2d 738, 751 (Tenn.1979). We find the above authority persuasive in resolving the issues before us as to RCW 9.68.010. The failure to properly instruct the jury that they must find the sexual conduct depicted in the films in question to be "patently offensive" therefore constitutes reversible error.

Since the time of our decision in J-R Distributors, the United States Supreme Court has extended the requirement of applying contemporary community standards to the second prong of the Miller test. Smith v. United States, 431 U.S. 291, 300-01, 97 S.Ct....