Miller v. California

Miller v. California
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 18–19, 1972 Reargued November 7, 1972 Decided June 21, 1973
Full case name	Marvin Miller v. State of California
Citations	413 U.S. 15 (more) 93 S. Ct. 2607; 37 L. Ed. 2d 419; 1973 U.S. LEXIS 149; 1 Media L. Rep. 144.1
Prior history	Summary affirmation of jury verdict by Appellate Department, Superior Court of California, County of Orange, was unpublished.
Holding
Obscene materials are defined as those that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, find, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest; that depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law; and that the work, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Court membership
Case opinions
Majority	Burger, joined by White, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist
Dissent	Douglas
Dissent	Brennan, joined by Stewart, Marshall
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I; Cal. Penal Code 311.2(a)

Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973) was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court wherein the court redefined its definition of obscenity from that of “utterly without socially redeeming value” to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." It is now referred to as the three-prong standard or the Miller test, with the third prong being informally known by the initialism and mnemonic device "SLAPS" or the term "SLAPS test."

In 1971, Marvin Miller, an owner/operator of a California mail-order business specializing in pornographic films and books, sent out a brochure advertising for books and a film that graphically depicted sexual activity between men and women. The brochure used in the mailing contained graphic images from the books and the film. Five of the brochures were mailed to a restaurant in Newport Beach, California. The owner and his mother opened the envelope and seeing the brochures, called the police.

Miller was arrested and charged with violating California Penal Code 311.2(a) which says in part, “Every person who knowingly sends or causes to be sent, or brings or causes to be brought, into this state for sale or distribution, or in this state possesses, prepares, publishes, produces, or prints, with intent to distribute or to exhibit to others, or who offers to distribute, distributes, or exhibits to others, any obscene matter is for a first offense, guilty of a misdemeanor."California lawmakers wrote the statute based on two previous Supreme Court obscenity cases, Memoirs v. Massachusetts and Roth v. United States.

Miller was tried by jury in the Superior Court of Orange County. At the conclusion of the evidence phase, the judge instructed the jury to evaluate the evidence by the community standards of California, i.e., as defined by the statute. The jury returned a guilty verdict.