United States v. Stagliano, Inc. ( 2010 )

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )
)
v. ) Criminal Action No. 08-93 (RJL)
)
JOHN STAGLIANO, et al., )
)
Defendants. )
~
MEMORANDUM OPINION
(February ~ 2010) [#17, 20, and 21]
The defendants-John Stagliano, John Stagliano, Inc., and Evil Angel
Productions, Inc.-challenge the constitutionality of four federal statutes that
criminalize the interstate trafficking of obscenity. They move to dismiss the
Indictment charging them with offenses under 18 U.S.C. § 1462, 18 U.S.C. §
1465, 18 U.S.C. § 1466, and 47 U.S.C. § 223(d). In particular, they contend that
these statutes are unconstitutionally vague and overbroad as applied to Internet
speech. They also contend that the statutes are unconstitutional in light of recent
Supreme Court case law that they say establishes a substantive due process right to
sexual privacy broad enough to include the right to distribute obscene materials.
Having considered the defendants' arguments, the Court concludes that the federal
obscenity statutes charged in the Indictment withstand the defendants' multi-
faceted constitutional challenge. Accordingly, the Court DENIES their respective
Motions to Dismiss.
BACKGROUND
The pending Indictment contains seven counts. Counts One and Two
charge the defendants with knowingly transporting an obscene motion-picture film
in interstate commerce for the purpose of selling or distributing the film, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1465. 1 Count Three charges the defendants with
knowingly using an interactive computer service for the purpose of distributing in
interstate commerce an obscene motion-picture trailer, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §
1465. Counts Four and Five charge the defendants with knowingly using an
express company or other common carrier to ship the two films in Counts One and
Two from California to a location in Washington, D.C., in violation of 18 U.S.C. §
2
1462. Count Six charges the defendants with knowingly possessing the obscene
I Section 1465 specifically provides:
Whoever knowingly produces with the intent to transport,
distribute, or transmit in interstate or foreign commerce, or
whoever knowingly transports or travels in, or uses a facility
or means of, interstate or foreign commerce or an interactive
computer service ... in or affecting such commerce, for the
purpose of sale or distribution of any obscene, lewd,
lascivious, or filthy book, pamphlet, picture, film, paper,
letter, writing, print, silhouette, drawing, figure, image, cast,
phonograph recording, electrical transcription or other article
capable of producing sound or any other matter of indecent or
immoral character, shall be fined under this title or
imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
2 Section 1462 provides:
Whoever brings into the United States, or any place subject to
the jurisdiction thereof, or knowingly uses any express
company or other common carrier or interactive computer
service ... for carriage in interstate or foreign commerce-(a)
any obscene, lewd, lascivious, or filthy book, pamphlet,
picture, motion-picture film, paper. letter, writing, print, or
2
items in Counts One, Two, and Three with the intent to distribute those items in
interstate commerce while engaged in the business of selling obscene material, in
3
violation of 18 U.S.c. § 1466. Count Seven charges the defendants with
knowingly using an interactive computer service to display an obscene image-
that is, the movie trailer identified in Count Three-in a manner available to a
person under 18 years of age, in violation of47 U.S.C. § 223(d).4
The FBI obtained the materials that form the basis for these charges in the
course of investigating allegations that the defendants produce and distribute
certain obscene "hard-core pornography." (Gov't Opposition [#23] at 1). After
placing an order with the defendants by mailing a form printed from their website,
FBI agents in Washington, D.C. received by mail two DVDs-"Milk Nymphos"
other matter of indecent character ... Shall be fined under
this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both ....
3 Section 1466 provides:
(a) Whoever is engaged in the business of producing with
intent to distribute or sell, or selling or transferring obscene
matter, who knowingly receives or possesses with intent to
distribute any obscene book, magazine, picture, paper, film,
videotape, or phonograph or other audio recording, which has
been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce,
shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 5 years
or by a fine under this title, or both.
4 Section 223( d) provides:
Whoever-( 1) in interstate or foreign communications
knowingly- ... (B) uses any interactive computer service to
display in a manner available to a person under 18 years of
age, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or
other communication that, is obscene or child pornography,
regardless of whether the user of such service placed the call
or initiated the communication ... shall be fined under Title
18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
3
and "Storm Squirters 2 'Target Practice'''-that allegedly contain obscene movies.
(Id. at 1-2). An agent in Washington also downloaded from the defendants'
website a free movie trailer-"Fetish Fanatic Chapter 5"-that the government
believes to be obscene as well. (Id. at 2). Descriptions of the films are not
relevant at this stage, of course, because it is the jury's province to determine
whether those films are actually obscene. The issue now before the Court is
limited to the legal question of whether the obscenity statutes charged in the
Indictment are unconstitutional. The defendants contend that they are. I disagree.
DISCUSSION
The defendants raise a litany of arguments challenging the constitutionality
of the federal obscenity statutes charged in this case. First and foremost, they
contend that Section 1465 and Section 223(d), both of which incorporate the
"community standards" and "as a whole" elements of the obscenity test set forth in
Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), are unconstitutionally overbroad and
vague as applied to Internet speech. Second, they contend that Section 223( d) is a
content-based restriction on speech that fails strict scrutiny under the First
Amendment. Because of these constitutional defects, the defendants contend, at a
minimum, that Counts Three and Seven of the Indictment must be dismissed. Not
surprisingly, the defendants do not stop there. In addition to their overbreadth and
vagueness claims, they contend that all counts of the Indictment must be dismissed
because individuals have a substantive due process right under the Constitution
not only to possess and use obscene materials but to produce and distribute those
4
materials as well. Finally, they contend that obscenity prosecutions in the District
of Columbia impermissibly burden the right to copyright work that would be
protected elsewhere. Unfortunately for the defendants, I am not persuaded by any
of these arguments. How so?
I. Overbreadth
The defendants' principal argument, which happens to be their best, is that
Section 1465 (charged in Count Three) and Section 223( d) (charged in Count
Seven) are unconstitutional as applied to the Internet because the "community
standards" and "as a whole" elements of Miller's obscenity test render both
statutes overbroad. I disagree.
The First Amendment doctrine of overbreadth is an exception to the normal
rule governing facial challenges to statutes. Virginia v. Hicks, 539 U.S. 113,118
(2003). To invalidate a law on its face under this doctrine, one need not show that
the law is unconstitutional in every instance; rather, one need only show that the
"law punishes a 'substantial' amount of protected free speech." Id. In that regard,
the overbreadth must "be 'substantial,' not only in an absolute sense, but also
relative to the scope of the law's plainly legitimate applications." Id. at 120.
Both Section 1465 and Section 223(d) prohibit the use of an interactive
computer service to distribute or display "obscene" materials. Beyond dispute is
the Supreme Court's repeated admonition "that obscene material is unprotected by
the First Amendment." Miller, 413 U.S. at 23. Of course, courts have long
struggled to draw the line between protected expression and unprotected
5
obscenity. But after years of jurisprudential uncertainty, the Supreme Court in
Miller finally settled on a three-prong test for determining whether a particular
work is obscene: (1) "whether the average person, applying contemporary
community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the
prurient interest"; (2) "whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently
offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable ... law"; and
(3) "whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or
scientific value." Id. at 24 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court
later refined this test by incorporating the community standards element of the first
prong into the second prong and by mandating that the third prong be evaluated
using an objective "reasonable person" standard. Pope v. Illinois, 481 U.S. 497,
500-01 (1987).
Because the challenged statutes incorporate the Miller test by virtue of their
ban on "obscene" material, it appears, at first blush, that there is an exact
congruence between the kind of expression the Constitution permits to be
punished and the kind of expression the statutes in fact punish. The statutes
criminalize, and the defendants have been charged with, the distribution or display
of obscene material, and obscene material "has long been held to fall outside the
purview of the First Amendment." Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union,
535 U.S. 564, 574 (2002) (ACLU l). For this reason, the Court rejects out of hand
the defendants' argument that Section 223 (d)( 1), which prohibits use of the
6
Internet to display "obscene" material in a manner available to minors,5 is a
content-based regulation that cannot survive strict scrutiny. (See Evil Angel
Productions Mem. [#17] at 13-23). Because obscenity, as defined in Miller, is a
category of speech not protected by the Constitution, statutes like Section 223( d)
that regulate obscene materials in a viewpoint neutral way are not subject to strict
scrutiny.6 As such, the Court need only address the defendants central argument
that Section 223( d) and Section 1465 are unconstitutional as applied to the Internet
because the "community standards" and "as a whole" requirements of Miller's
obscenity test render both statutes overbroad.
A. "Community Standards" Requirement
The defendants contend that the federal obscenity statutes, which
incorporate the "community standards" test, suppress substantially more speech
5 In addition to prohibiting "obscene" material, Section 223( d) also
prohibits "child pornography." The defendants raise no facial challenge to this
aspect of the statute.
6 The defendants claim that the Supreme Court has moved away from
treating obscenity as "unprotected speech." (Stagliano Mem. [#21] at 10). They
point to R.A. V v. City ofSt. Paul where the Supreme Court made clear that even
though certain categories of speech, such as obscenity and defamation, may "be
regulated because of their constitutionally proscribable content," those categories
are not "entirely invisible to the Constitution." 505 U.S. 377, 383 (1992)
(emphasis omitted). The defendants miss the point. R.A. V does not mean that
"unprotected" categories of speech like obscenity and defamation can no longer be
regulated based on their proscribable content. It stands only for the proposition
that those categories cannot "be made the vehicles for content discrimination
unrelated to their distinctively proscribable content." Id. at 383-84 (emphasis
added). Thus, for example, "the government may proscribe libel; but it may not
make the further content discrimination of proscribing only libel critical of the
government." Id. at 384. The obscenity statutes do not suffer this defect. Even
though they regulate constitutionally proscribable content, which is permissible,
they do not discriminate on the basis of viewpoint.
7
than is constitutionally permissible when applied to the Internet. Because Internet
publishers, unlike those who use mail or telephone, cannot limit the geographic
reach of the materials they post on the Internet, those materials are subject to the
community standards of the most conservative jurisdictions in the country. Thus,
to avoid criminal liability, the publishers must either tailor their speech to conform
to those standards or abstain altogether from using the Internet as a medium for
their speech. As a consequence, Internet speech that more permissive jurisdictions
would surely protect will be unconstitutionally burdened or chilled. (Evil Angel
Productions [#17] at 4-8; John Stagliano Inc. [#20] at 10-12).
Although a majority of Supreme Court justices in a splintered decision in
Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU J) voiced concern that a
"community standards" requirement, as applied in Internet prosecutions under the
Child Online Protection Act ("COPA"), poses overbreadth problems, 7 those
concerns hardly suffice to render the more narrow obscenity statutes
unconstitutional as applied to the Internet. Indeed, notwithstanding their concerns,
7 For instance, Justice Kennedy, joined by two other justices, acknowledged
that the "national variation in community standards constitutes a particular burden
on Internet speech." ACLU J, 535 U.S. at 597 (Kennedy, J., concurring in the
jUdgment). Similarly, Justice O'Connor wrote that "given Internet speakers'
inability to control the geographic location of their audience, expecting them to
bear the burden of controlling the recipients of their speech ... may be entirely too
much to ask, and would potentially suppress an inordinate amount of expression."
Jd. at 587 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment). In
somewhat more colorful language, Justice Breyer pointed out that applying "the
community standards of every locality in the United States would provide the most
puritan of communities with a heckler's Internet veto affecting the rest of the
Nation." Jd. at 590 (Breyer, J., concurring in part and concurring the in the
judgment).
8
an overwhelming majority of the Supreme Court held in ACLU J that "reliance on
community standards ... does not by itself render [COP A] substantially overbroad
for purposes of the First Amendment."g 535 U.S. at 585 (emphasis in original).
The same rationale applies here. If COPA's incorporation of community
g In United States v. Kilbride, the Ninth Circuit held that the narrowest
reading of the splintered ACLU J decision required the court to accept the view of
Justices O'Connor and Breyer "that a national community standard must be
applied in regulating obscene speech on the Internet." 584 FJd 1240, 1254 (9th
Cir. 2009). I disagree. Eight justices concurred in the judgment that the use of
community standards did not "by itselfrender the statute substantially overbroad."
ACLU J, 535 U.S. at 585. Justice Thomas, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and
Justice Scalia, did so based on their belief that COPA was sufficiently narrow in
application that any variation in community standards did not render the statute
substantially overbroad. Jd. at 577-84 (Thomas, 1.). The remaining five justices
indicated, however, that the possibility of varying community standards raised
potential constitutional concerns. Although Justice O'Connor favored a national
standard, she nevertheless affirmed the use of community standards because the
plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate substantial overbreadth due to excessive
variation among local communities. Jd. at 586-89 (O'Connor, J., concurring in
part and concurring in the judgment). Unlike Justice O'Connor, however, Justice
Breyer concurred, not because of the plaintiffs' failure of proof, but because he
read the statutory term "community" to mean the Nation's adult community as a
whole. Jd. at 589-91 (Breyer, 1., concurring in part and concurring in the
judgment). Justice Kennedy, joined by Justices Souter and Ginsburg, affirmed the
judgment for much the same reason as Justice O'Connor. See id. at 597-602(Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment). They concluded that it was impossible
to "know whether variation in community standards renders [COPA] substantially
overbroad without first assessing the extent of the speech covered and the
variations in community standards with respect to that speech." Jd. at 597. Of the
five justices who found the use of community standards to be constitutionally
problematic, only Justice Breyer based his decision on the belief that a national
community standard applied. Notwithstanding their concerns, the other four
justices were willing to accept the constitutional viability of community standards
in the absence of evidence establishing substantial overbreadth based on the
amount of speech covered and the degree of variance among communities.
Because Justice Breyer disregarded the possibility that local community standards
might be constitutional in light of the facts and circumstances of the case and
instead imposed a uniform national standard that no other justice thought was
necessary, his rationale is not the narrowest, and as a result, it does not control.
9
standards did not by itselfrender that statute substantially overbroad, then the
obscenity statutes' incorporation of community standards does not-standing
alone-render those statutes substantially overbroad. Not surprisingly, the
defendants offer no argument-nor do they offer any evidence-that would justify
holding otherwise.
Indeed, to the extent that the obscenity statutes are overbroad at all-which
itself is debatable 9-it stands to reason that the potential scope of that overbreadth
9 Notwithstanding the concerns raised by some of the justices in ACLU I, it
is questionable whether the application of community standards renders the
obscenity statutes overbroad as applied to the Internet. Because the statutes are
limited to the regulation of obscenity, they exceed their plainly legitimate scope
only if they burden or chill speech that is actually protected by the First
Amendment. In affirming the constitutionality of the "community standards"
requirement, the Supreme Court in Miller explained that "[i]t is neither realistic
nor constitutionally sound to read the First Amendment as requiring that the
people of Maine or Mississippi accept public depiction of conduct found tolerable
in Las Vegas, or New York City." 413 U.S. at 32. This point makes sense,
however, only if the speech found tolerable in Las Vegas or New York, but
regulable in Maine or Mississippi, is not entitled to full First Amendment
protection. That more permissive jurisdictions choose not to punish speech that
other jurisdictions may constitutionally proscribe does not entitle that speech to
protection as a constitutional matter. This point is underscored by the Supreme
Court's assurance in Miller that, under a national constitution, fundamental First
Amendment limitations "do not vary from community to community." Id. at 30.
Furthermore, in rejecting arguments that governmental regulation of obscene
speech violates First Amendment norms, the Miller Court emphasized that the
First Amendment "protects works which, taken as a whole, have serious literary,
artistic, political, or scientific value." Id. at 34. Speech that some jurisdictions
could constitutionally prohibit under the Miller test but that other jurisdictions
would permit due to more permissive community standards necessarily lacks
serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value. Speech that had serious
value would obviously be entitled to full constitutional protection in any
jurisdiction. Therefore, because the defendants' overbreadth claim involves
speech lacking in serious social value, it is doubtful whether that speech is even
protected by the First Amendment. At the very least, the constitutional value of
10
is less extensive than the overbreadth resulting from COPA. After all, COPA
threatened greater overbreadth because it regulated far more than obscenity-it
regulated "material that is harmful to minors." 47 U.S.C. § 231(a)(1). Regulating
a broader range of content "magnif[ies] the impact caused by differences in
community standards across the country." ACLU I, 535 U.S. at 578 (plurality
opinion). By contrast, the obscenity statutes are confined to the much narrower,
legal definition of obscenity set forth in Miller. Presumably, the only protected
speech burdened by those statutes on account of varying community standards are
materials that lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value but either
do not appeal to the prurient interest or are not patently offensive in some, but not
all, jurisdictions. 10 Because the obscenity statutes regulate significantly less
content than COP A, the threat of substantial overbreadth due to varying
community standards is reduced considerably relative to COPA. Therefore, to the
extent that COP A's use of community standards did not-by itself-render that
statute substantially overbroad, the Court can safely conclude that the use of
community standards in prosecuting obscenity on the Internet does not-by
that speech is so slight (compared to speech that is found to have serious social
value) that any burden imposed upon it does not justify the wholesale invalidation
of the obscenity statutes as applied to the Internet.
10 Unlike the "prurient interest" and "patently offensive" prongs, whether a
work lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value does not depend
on varying community standards but is judged by an objective "reasonable
person" standard. Pope, 481 U.S. at 500-01. Thus, to the extent that the same
work is constitutionally proscribed in one jurisdiction but permitted in another, the
jurisdictions must agree, at a minimum, that the work lacks serious value. If it had
serious value, then it could not be prohibited consistent with the Constitution in
any jurisdiction.
11
itself-render Section 1465 and Section 223( d) substantially overbroad in
violation of the First Amendment. Surely I cannot do to the obscenity statutes
what the Supreme Court was unwilling to do to COPA in the absence of evidence
of substantial overbreadth. II
B. "As A Whole" Requirement
Of course, the defendants' do not necessarily contend that the "community
standards" requirement alone renders the obscenity statutes overbroad. (Stagliano
Mem. [#21] at 23). They contend that the "community standards" requirement,
coupled with the requirement that the allegedly obscene material be evaluated "as
a whole," together renders the obscenity statutes sufficiently overbroad as applied
to Internet speech. 12 (/d.). In particular, with respect to the "as a whole"
II The defendants' copyright argument, although rather novel, does not
justify invalidating the obscenity statutes on their face. First, any burden on a
publisher'S ability to register a copyright does not itself violate the Constitution
because there is no constitutional right to copyright registration. Darden v. Peters,
488 F.3d 277, 284 (4th Cir. 2007). Second, to the extent that the inability to
obtain copyright protection burdens the First Amendment rights of publishers
whose works would be protected in one jurisdiction but not in the District of
Columbia, the defendants' argument is nothing more than a regurgitation of their
claim that Miller's "community standards" requirement is overbroad as applied to
publishers who cannot control the geographic reach of their allegedly obscene
materials. As I have already explained, that fact alone does not warrant
invalidating the obscenity statutes charged in the Indictment.
12 Although the point is not expressed in any detail, the defendants also
suggest that the "community standards" requirement violates due process because
it allows for selective prosecutions and forum shopping. (Stagliano Mem. [#21] at
7,20 & n.26, 23). If the defendants mean that the "community standards"
requirement empowers the government to impose the community standards of its
preferred jurisdiction on nationwide speech, then this point is simply a restatement
of the defendants' overbreadth argument, which the Court has already rejected. If,
however, the defendants mean that the "community standards" requirement
12
requirement, the defendants claim that the express language of Section 1645 and
Section 223( d) permits individual items, such as a "picture" or "image," to be
judged, not in context, but by themselves. (Evil Angel Productions [# 17] at 12-13;
John Stagliano Inc. [#20] at 9). Because a fact finder might consider an individual
item obscene in isolation, but not in the context of a surrounding website, the
defendants contend that the statutes are overbroad because they suppress or chill
speech that would otherwise be protected. I disagree.
Since Miller, the Supreme Court has said that the standards announced in
that case are applicable to federal legislation and that, to the extent any doubt
exists about the constitutionality of a federal obscenity statute, courts are free to
construe that statute in line with the Miller test. United States v. 12200-Foot
Reels ojSuper 8mm Film, 413 U.S. 123, 130 & n.7 (1973). Both statutes at issue
here regulate "obscene" materials. Section 1465 regulates any "obscene ... book,
pamphlet, picture, film, paper, letter, writing, print, silhouette, drawing, figure,
image, cast, phonograph recording, electrical transcription or other article capable
of producing sound." 18 U.S.C. § 1465. Similarly, Section 223(d) regulates "any
comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that[] is
obscene." 47 U.S.C. § 223(d). By definition, no individual item can be found
empowers the government to act unfairly or improperly, then their argument fails
because "in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary," courts presume that
government agents "properly discharge[] their official duties." United States v.
Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 464 (1996) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Speculative fear that the government might abuse its prosecutorial discretion is not
grounds for invalidating an otherwise constitutional statute.
13
obscene under Miller if taken out of context. The purpose of the "as a whole"
requirement is that any allegedly obscene material be judged, not in isolation, but
in the context of the work of which they are a part. This point is well-
demonstrated by Kois v. Wisconsin, where the Supreme Court found it
unnecessary to evaluate individual pictures "because in the context in which they
appeared in the newspaper they were rationally related to an article that itself was
clearly entitled to [constitutional] protection." 408 U.S. 229, 231 (1972).
In any event, even if Section 1465 and Section 223(d) could be construed,
as the defendants suggest, to permit an individual item to be judged out of context,
this Court need not read the statutes that way. Indeed, this Court cannot invalidate
an overbroad statute on its face if "a limiting construction or partial invalidation so
narrows it as to remove the seeming threat or deterrence to constitutionally
protected expression." Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601,613 (1973).
Fortunately, such a limiting construction is readily available here. Because the
obscenity statutes forbid the distribution of items that are obscene and because
Miller and its progeny define an item as obscene only in relation to the larger
work, the Court may reasonably construe the obscenity statutes to require that the
listed items be judged, not in isolation, but in the context of the surrounding work.
Given this construction, the relevant obscenity statutes do not run afoul of Miller's
"as a whole" requirement.
Nor are Sections 1462 and 1465, which are charged in Counts One though
Five, unconstitutionally overbroad because they include the terms "lewd,"
14
"lascivious," "indecent," "filthy," and "vile." The defendants contend that those
terms are undefined in the obscenity statutes and that, as a result, the statutes could
be used to criminalize constitutionally protected speech that might be lewd or
indecent, but not obscene, under the Miller test. (John Stagliano Inc. Mem. [#20]
at 13-16). The defendants' argument, however, is foreclosed by the reasoning in
United States v. 12 200-Foot Reels of Film and Hamling v. United States. In both
cases, the Supreme Court stated that it would construe the generic terms in
Sections 1461 and 1462, which are nearly identical to the terms in Section 1465, in
accordance with Miller's definition of obscenity. 12 200-Foot Reels of Film, 413
U.S. at l30 n.7; Hamling, 418 U.S. 87,114 (1974). Because the generic terms of
the federal obscenity statutes are appropriately limited by judicial construction, the
statutes are not overbroad. As such, the defendants' reliance on cases involving
state obscenity statutes that include similar generic terms is entirely misplaced.
II. Vagueness
In addition to overbreadth, the defendants also contend that Miller's "as a
whole" requirement is unconstitutionally vague because it is unclear how that
requirement would apply in the context of the Internet. (Stagliano Mem. [#21] at
18-22). Specifically, the defendants point to Justice Kennedy's concurrence in
ACLU J, where he stated that it was "unclear whether what is to be judged as a
whole is a single image on a Web page, a whole Web page, an entire multipage
Web site, or an interlocking set of Web sites." ACLU J, 535 U.S. at 593(Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment).
15
Vagueness, of course, is essentially a doctrinal construct of the Fifth
Amendment Due Process Clause. A statute is invalid if it "fails to provide a
person of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what is prohibited, or is so
standardless that it authorizes or encourages seriously discriminatory
enforcement." Us. v. Williams, 128 S. Ct. 1830, 1845 (2008). In short, what
matters is whether criminal culpability is tied to "wholly subjective judgments
without statutory definitions, narrowing context, or settled legal meanings." Jd. at
1846.
Since Miller, the definition of obscenity and, in particular, the "as a whole"
requirement have had a settled legal meaning. Although the defendants contend
that the meaning of "as a whole" is unclear as applied to the Internet, the Supreme
Court has held that a "lack of precision is not itself offensive to the requirements
of due process." Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 491 (1957). All that is
required is sufficient warning: "That there may be marginal cases in which it is
difficult to determine the side of the line on which a particular fact situation falls is
no sufficient reason to hold the language too ambiguous to define a criminal
offense." Jd. at 491-92 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The same reasoning applies here. Even if, as Justice Kennedy suggested in
ACLU J, it is less than certain whether the "whole" work is a single image or the
entire website, the "as a whole" requirement is no less clear in this case than in
countless other cases where courts have applied that requirement in a new factual
16
setting. I3 Far from exposing the defendants to wholly sUbjective judgments,
Miller's definition of obscenity and, in particular, the "as a whole" requirement are
sufficiently definite, even in the context of the Internet, to survive yet another
constitutional challenge on vagueness grounds. As the Supreme Court itself
announced when it decided Miller, the obscenity test "provide[ s] fair notice to a
dealer in [pornographic] materials that his public and commercial activities may
bring prosecution." 413 U.S. at 27. Even though the defendants invite this Court
to revisit that determination, I will not do so just because a new medium is in play.
As a constitutional matter, I am confident that the relevant obscenity statutes,
when read against the backdrop of a long line of Supreme Court cases defining
obscenity, provide sufficient guidance to Internet publishers that whatever
arguably obscene material they distribute on the Internet will be judged, not in
isolation, but in context.
Having determined that Section 1465 and Section 223( d) are not
unconstitutionally vague as applied to Internet speech, I will briefly address the
defendants' argument that the entire website is the relevant work to be judged in
13 See, e.g., Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 212 n.7 (1975)
(noting that "[s]cenes of nudity in a movie, like pictures of nude persons in a book,
must be considered as a part of the whole work"); Kois, 408 U.S. at 231 (taking
account, not only of the allegedly obscene poem, but also "its placement amid a
selection of poems in the interior of a newspaper"); Penthouse Int 'I, Ltd. v.
McAuliffe, 610 F.2d 1353, 1368 (5th Cir. 1980) (deciding that magazines are "to
be considered as whole works even though made up of separate articles"); United
States v. Various Articles of Obscene Merch., Schedule No. 2098, 536 F. Supp. 50,
53 (S.D.N.Y. 1981) (holding that each film contained on a single video cassette is
subject "to its own independent evaluation").
17
Counts Three and Seven of the Indictment. (John Stagliano Inc. Mem. [#20] at
16-17). Describing the movie trailer as just one small part of the overall Evil
Angel website-which includes hundreds of other trailers, information about
various Evil Angel productions, a newsletter, customer support and membership
information, an on-line store, and links to other web sites featuring both erotic and
political content-the defendants analogize the website to a magazine, a book of
collected works, or a catalogue. (Stagliano Reply [#26] at 3-5). The government
argues that the trailer is a single work that should be judged independently. By
comparison, it analogizes the website to an on-line store selling individual works
with no meaningful connection to one another that would require
contextualization. (Gov't Opposition [#23] at 7-8). The government relies in
particular on United States v. Various Articles o/Obscene Merch., Schedule No.
2098, where the District Court for the Southern District of New York held that
each movie on a single video cassette was a separate work entitled to its own
independent evaluation. 536 F. Supp. 50, 53 (S.D.N.Y. 1981).
Although the relationship between the website and the trailer obviously
bear some similarity to the relationship between magazines and articles, books of
collected works and the individual works, catalogues and the advertised products,
as well as on-line stores and their merchandise, to analogize the website and trailer
at issue here to any single kind of work is to lose sight of the fundamental purpose
undergirding the "as a whole" requirement. In Roth v. United States, the Supreme
Court approved a jury instruction that described the requirement this way: "The
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books, pictures and circulars must be judged as a whole, in their entire context,
and you are not to consider detached or separate portions in reaching a
conclusion." 354 U.S. at 490 (internal quotation marks omitted). In short, what is
important is that the allegedly obscene material be judged in context. The
appropriate context in which to evaluate the trailer here is, at a minimum, the web
page on which the trailer was posted. This is not to say that the government must
prove that the entire webpage is obscene. The obscenity test, after all, is not
quantitative. Penthouse Int 'I, Ltd., 610 F .2d at 1368. Rather, the government will
have to show that the trailer is obscene in light of the surrounding webpage, not in
isolation. During the course of the trial, the Court will address on a case-by-case
basis whether the jury should have access to other pages of the website as well.
III. Substantive Due Process
Having disposed of the defendants' overbreadth and vagueness arguments,
I now tum to their more sweeping claim that the entire prosecution should be
dismissed because the Constitution creates a substantive due process right to
sexual privacy that includes both the right of individuals to possess obscene
material and, by extension, the right of publishers to provide that material to
willing recipients. As a preliminary matter, I do not believe that Supreme Court
precedent can be fairly read to support a First Amendment right to distribute
obscene material in public. Indeed, although the Supreme Court has held in
Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), that the mere possession of obscene
materials in the privacy of one's home is protected by the First Amendment, id. at
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568, subsequent decisions firmly establish that there is no corresponding right to
receive or distribute such materials. The Supreme Court has made clear that "the
protected right to possess obscene material in the privacy of one's home does not
give rise to a correlative right to have someone sell or give it to others." 12 200-
14
Foot Reels a/Film 413 U.S. at 128.
Faced with this insurmountable case law, the defendants, like alchemists of
old, have conjured up an alternative theory based on evolving developments in the
Supreme Court's substantive due process jurisprudence. IS Relying on a long line
of privacy cases beginning with Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965),
and culminating with Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), they advance two
basic contentions: (1) the sum of these cases establishes a constitutionally
protected liberty interest in sexual privacy, which includes the right to possess and
14 See also United States v. Drito, 413 U.S. 139, 141-42 (1973) (rejecting
"the idea that some zone of constitutionally protected privacy follows such
material when it is moved outside the home area protected by Stanley"); United
States v. Reidel, 402 U.S. 351, 354-55 (1971) (holding that the right announced in
Stanley did not apply to those who "are routinely disseminating obscenity through
the mails and who have no claim, and could make none, about unwanted
governmental intrusions into the privacy of their home").
15 It is doubtful whether the defendants' substantive due process argument
can even be raised to circumvent the post-Stanley line of cases. The Third Circuit
held in United States v. Extreme Associates, Inc. that even if Lawrence
undermined the post-Stanley cases, those cases still control in light of Agostini v.
Felton, 521 U.S. 203 (1997). Extreme Associates, Inc., 431 F.3d 150, 155-56 (3rd
Cir. 2005). As a result, the Third Circuit rejected a constitutional challenge to the
obscenity statutes on the ground that the Supreme Court "has considered the
federal statutes regulating the distribution of obscenity in the context of the
broader constitutional right to privacy and [has] upheld them." Id. at 159.
Whatever the merits of this point, it is academic because the Court is not
persuaded that Lawrence cast any doubt on the post-Stanley cases.
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the correlative right to distribute or obtain obscene materials; and (2) morality is
not a rational, much less compelling, basis for overcoming that liberty interest.
(Evil Angel Productions Mem. [# 17] at 26-39; John Stagliano, Inc. Mem. [#20] at
20-27; Stagliano Mem. [#21] at 13-18). As to both, I disagree.
First, I reject the notion that the liberty interest announced in Lawrence
somehow includes a right to obtain or distribute obscenity. The defendants
misconstrue the nature of the liberty interest at stake in that case. What is evident
from the Supreme Court's decision is its intent to prevent the state from burdening
certain intimate, consensual relationships by criminalizing the private sexual acts
that are instrumental to those relationships. In defining the contours of the liberty
interest, the Supreme Court made a point to note that the statutes challenged in
Lawrence "seek to control a personal relationship that ... is within the liberty of
persons to choose without being punished as criminals." 539 U.S. at 567. The
defendants, in effect, demean this liberty interest by defining it as a right to sexual
privacy, when it is really about the right to form meaningful, personal bonds that
find expression in sexual intimacy. As the Supreme Court put it: "When sexuality
finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be
but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring. The liberty protected by
the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to make this choice." Id.
The possession and use of obscenity are hardly analogous to the sexual acts that
the Lawrence Court found to be so instrumental to the relationships of homosexual
persons. Indeed, the liberty interest that the defendants claim pales in comparison
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to the liberty interest at stake in Lawrence. Similarly, the purported right to obtain
or distribute obscenity does not remotely approach the fundamental liberty
interests implicated in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), and
Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972), where the Supreme Court held that the
right to decide whether to bear or beget a child includes the right to obtain
contraceptives. As a result, I reject the defendants' contention that Lawrence and
its predecessors created a so-called right to sexual privacy so fundamental and so
sweeping that it includes the right to obtain, as well as the correlative right to
distribute, obscene materials in the public marketplace, which the post-Stanley
cases repeatedly rejected. Thus, absent clear support in the constitutional text or
in Supreme Court case law, I will neither certify the defendants' gold-toned
constitutional concoction, nor conjure one up on my own.
Furthermore, to the extent that Lawrence rejects public morality as a
legitimate governmental interest, it does so only in the narrow context of private
conduct that has no potential to harm others. Williams v. Morgan, 478 F .3d 1316,
1322 (lith Cir. 2007). The Lawrence Court made clear that its holding did not
extend to cases that "involve public conduct." Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 578. The
obscenity statutes, unlike the statute invalidated in Lawrence, do not target purely
private activity. To the contrary, they target the public dissemination or the
possession for sale of obscene materials. Although public morality may be an
insufficient justification for regulating private conduct in some cases, it is certainly
a sufficient justification for regulating the sort of public conduct at issue here.
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Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld obscenity statutes on the basis
that the government can "legitimately act ... to protect 'the social interest in order
and morality. '" Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 61 (1973) (quoting
Roth, 354 U.S. at 485).
Because there is no substantive due process right to sexual privacy that
would include the right to obtain or distribute obscene materials and because the
government's interest in morality is a sufficient justification for regulating the
public dissemination of obscenity, I easily reject the defendants' substantive due
process challenge to the Indictment.
CONCLUSION
The Supreme Court has warned that striking down a statute for overbreadth
is "strong medicine" that should be employed "sparingly and only as a last resort."
Broadrick, 413 U.S. at 613. Having considered the defendants' overbreadth
arguments, I am not convinced that such strong medicine is warranted in this case.
Nor am I convinced that the federal obscenity statutes are unconstitutionally vague
as applied to Internet speech. Finally, I reject the defendants' most sweeping
claim-that the entire Indictment is void because recent developments in Supreme
Court case law guarantee the right to produce and distribute obscenity. Absent
binding precedent to the contrary, I will not create or enlarge unenumerated
constitutional rights of the kind that the defendants seek. Although this case is not
the first to attack the constitutionality of federal obscenity statutes, it will not
likely be the last. But for now, I see no reason to invalidate what the Supreme
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Court has repeatedly upheld. There being no convincing basis to set aside the
obscenity statutes charged in the Indictment, the Court hereby DENIES the
defendants' respective Motions to Dismiss.
United States District Judge
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