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Since a book cannot be proscribed as obscene unless found to be utterly without redeeming social value, the Supreme Judicial Court erroneously interpreted the federal constitutional standard. Pp. 383 U. S. 419 -420. 3.
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957), along with its companion case Alberts v. California, was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which redefined the constitutional test for determining what constitutes obscene material unprotected by the First Amendment. [1]
Jan 1, 2009 · In Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966), the Supreme Court revisited its obscenity test that an obscene work must be “utterly without redeeming social value.”
Jan 1, 2009 · Ohio (1964) and Memoirs, the Court refined the test by adding that to be considered obscene the material must be utterly without redeeming social value. Roth ruling offered broader protection for free expression in face of obscenity laws.
The Court noted that the First Amendment was not intended to protect every utterance or form of expression, such as materials that were "utterly without redeeming social importance." The Court held that the test to determine obscenity was "whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the ...
Utterly Without Redeeming Social Value: Directed by Charles Hirsch. With Paul Bartel, Rose Wood, Carol Saltus, Ida Hempstead.
Thus, even as they repeated the words of Roth, the Memoirs plurality produced a drastically altered test that called on the prosecution to prove a negative, i.e., that the material was "utterly without redeeming social value" -- a burden virtually impossible to discharge under our criminal standards of proof.
