A report on Miller v. California, Obscenity and Jacobellis v. Ohio

Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court modifying its definition of obscenity from that of "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value".

Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964), was a United States Supreme Court decision handed down in 1964 involving whether the state of Ohio could, consistent with the First Amendment, ban the showing of the Louis Malle film The Lovers (Les Amants), which the state had deemed obscene.

In the United States, the 1973 ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in Miller v. California established a three-tiered test to determine what was obscene—and thus not protected, versus what was merely erotic and thus protected by the First Amendment.

The Court's obscenity jurisprudence would remain fragmented until 1973's Miller v. California.

In Jacobellis v. Ohio, Justice Potter Stewart's concurring opinion said that the Court in earlier pornography cases "was faced with the task of trying to define what may be indefinable," and that criminal laws were constitutionally limited to "hard-core pornography," which he did not try to define: "perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it."

Roth-Jacobellis (1964): "community standards" applicable to an obscenity are national, not local standards. Material is "utterly without redeeming social importance". Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 US 184 (1964) - famous quote: "I shall not today attempt further to define [hardcore pornography] ...But I know it when I see it."