Combs v. State

1975 OK CR 81, 536 P.2d 373, 1975 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 524
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedMay 12, 1975
DocketF-74-702
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 1975 OK CR 81 (Combs v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Combs v. State, 1975 OK CR 81, 536 P.2d 373, 1975 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 524 (Okla. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

OPINION

BLISS, Judge:

The appellant, Floyd Dale Combs, hereinafter referred to as defendant, was charged, tried before a jury and convicted in the District Court of Tulsa County for violation of 21 O.S. § 1040.51, sale of a magazine which shows pictures or photographs of acts of sexual intercourse. The jury left punishment to the trial court and it was assessed at a fine of $10,000. From the judgment and sentence of the trial court defendant has perfected his timely appeal.

The facts adduced at trial are as follows : On the 4th of September, 1973, Tulsa County Assistant District Attorney James Wooley entered the Sheridan Book Mart in Tulsa, browsed for a while and then purchased issue number 232 of Screw Magazine in newspaper form from the defendant. The newspaper was stapled shut and Wooley did not look inside. The magazine was introduced into evidence and submitted to the jury for examination. The magazine contains pictures of sexual intercourse on numerous pages.

On cross-examination the witness testified that the magazine did not excite him sexually. However, it appealed to his prurient interest because the pictures raised “thoughts that they are lewd pictures”, but did not cause him to want to have any anti-social behavior. The State then rested.

The defense called Mack Finlayson, a University of Tulsa law student, who testified that he had talked to nine different people in the community and they did not seem to be “particularly offended by the newspaper and wouldn’t mind other people having it, but they wouldn’t buy it.” He then proceeded through the magazines dis *375 cussing various articles and pictures found therein, including pictures of actual intercourse and oral sex.

The defense then called Diane Quinn who testified that she resided in Tulsa, was a friend of the defendant’s and other persons involved in the adult book trade and that she had talked to numerous people in the community who believed they should be able to read adult, sexually oriented books if they so desired.

The defense then called Robert Williams, an employee of B. Dalton Bookseller in Tulsa, who identified defendant’s Exhibit No. 1, the book “The Joy of Sex”, and testified that the store has sold approximately 1,600 copies in 1974. The witness further described other sexually oriented books sold through his store and stated that approximately 20% of the 20,000 different titles in their store concern themselves with explicit sexual matters.

The defendant’s first proposition in error urges that 21 O.S. § 1040.51 under which the information was filed, trial conducted . and the judgment and conviction rendered, was, at the time of the filing of the information unconstitutional in light of the rulings of the United States Supreme Court of June 21, 1973, in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed.2d 419, and its companion cases. The pertinent portions of § 1040.51 are as follows :

“Any person who knowingly buys, sells, barters, traffics in, or causes to be delivered or transported in Oklahoma, any picture, moving picture, series of pictures, drawing, diagram or photograph of any person or animal or caricature thereof in an act or acts of sexual intercourse or unnatural copulation shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and shall be punished by a fine of not to exceed Twenty-five Thousand Dollars ($25,000.-00), or by imprisonment for not to exceed fifteen (15) years, or by both such fine and imprisonment. . . . ”

In our recent case of State v. Combs, Okl.Cr., - P.2d-A-18,010, this Court held that § 1040.51 as authoritatively construed in said case met the constitutional requirements of Miller and its companion cases. This Court further held that “acts of sexual intercourse or unnatural copulation” were acts properly proscribed by State obscenity statutes under Miller if depicted or described in a patently offensive way.

The defendant in his brief complains that the retroactive application of the Miller standards to the defendant in this case violates the constitutional ex post facto law proscription, citing Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 84 S.Ct. 1697, 12 L.Ed.2d 894. However, the Supreme Court has recently held in Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 94 S.Ct. 2887, 41 L.Ed.2d 590, that a retroactive application of the Miller standards to obscenity statutes did not purport to make criminal that conduct which had not previously been thought criminal, as was true in Bouie, supra. The Miller requirements instead add a “clarifying gloss” which makes the meaning of the statute “more definite” in its application to obscenity prosecutions. Therefore, claims of vagueness and lack of fair notice must fail. See also, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498, and Hess et al. v. State, Okl.Cr., F-74-510, 536 P.2d 362, recently decided by this Court.

The defendant further contends that this Court’s authoritative construction of § 1040.51 in Combs, supra, was an unconstitutional usurpation of the legislative function. Of course, we cannot agree. The application of the Miller standards to said statute merely adds a “clarifying gloss” which makes the statute more definite.

It is the further opinion of this Court that § 1040.51 has always met the requirements of notice and due process in sufficiently defining that material which was proscribed by the statute. As stated in Roth, supra, all that is required is that the statutory language convey sufficiently definite warning as to the proscribed con *376 duct when measured by common understanding and practices. Therefore, for all the reasons set out above, it is our opinion that § 1040.51 as authoritatively construed is constitutionally sound and that no substantial right of this defendant is violated by the application of the Miller standards for judging obscenity in the instant case and prior to our decision in Combs, supra. See Hamling, supra.

The defendant’s next proposition urges that the trial court committed reversible error in failing to suppress introduction of the material because no adversary proceeding to make a preliminary determination of and focus searchingly on the issues of obscenity as required by Heller v. New York, 413 U.S. 483, 93 S.Ct. 2789, 37 L.Ed.2d 745, was held prior to the issuance of a warrant for the arrest of the defendant. We disagree. In Combs, supra, and in Cherokee News & Arcade, Inc. v. State, Okl.Cr., 533 P.2d 624, this Court specifically held that a prior adversary hearing is not required when allegedly obscene material is obtained by purchase and no seizure is involved.

The defendant next contends that the burden of proof was improperly placed on the defendant to prove his innocence rather than upon the State to prove his guilt.

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1975 OK CR 109 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1975)
Hansen v. State
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Hess v. State
1975 OK CR 97 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1975)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1975 OK CR 81, 536 P.2d 373, 1975 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 524, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/combs-v-state-oklacrimapp-1975.