Hildahl v. State

1975 OK CR 107, 536 P.2d 1292, 1975 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 365
Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma·Decided June 4, 1975·No. F-74-164·Published·Cited by 12 cases

Opinion

OPINION

BLISS, Judge:

The appellant, Gerald Hildahl, 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 Between Persons. Punishment was assessed at a term of four (4) years in the state penitentiary and a fine of $15,000. From a judgment and sentence in conformance with said verdict the defendant has perfected his timely appeal.

The facts adduced at trial are as follows: On the 31st day of August, 1972, Raymond C. Kelly, a private citizen, at the request of the Tulsa District Attorney’s office, entered the Risque Book Store, an adult bookstore located in Tulsa, and purchased a copy of a magazine entitled “Workbook of Adult Sexual Education” from the defendant. The witness testified that defendant acknowledged that he was the owner of the store and that he took the magazine from a file cabinet underneath the sale counter. The magazine contains sexually explicit photographs of persons engaged in sexual intercourse. The magazine was introduced into evidence and submitted to the jury for examination. The State then rested.

The defense called two witnesses. James C. Thomas, a professor of law at the University of Tulsa, testified that he had talked to many students and persons in the community about sexually explicit material and that in his opinion the magazine did not violate community standards. He further testified that he was familiar with sexually explicit material and that the magazine did not arouse his prurient interests. Harold E. Hill, a professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Tulsa, testified that prior to coming to Tulsa he had been a part-time consultant on the research done by Dr. Kinsey at the University of Indiana. He further testified that he was an ordained minister and used sexually explicit material in counseling couples. He further stated that the magazine complained of contained photographs of equal sexual explicitness as the popular book “Joy of Sex” and other materials which he used in his counseling. Hill stated that the magazine was of value since it was a plain, honest and straightforward description of what is accepted by psychologists and psychiatrists as factual. The magazine did not offend the witness and it was his opinion that such material *1295 had never harmed anyone. Hill further testified that the magazine would cause no prurient desire in a mature adult. The defendant did not testify in his own behalf.

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., 536 P.2d 1301, 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 (1974), 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., 536 P.2d 362 recently decided by this Court.

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 conduct 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 State, 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 State, 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.

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Hildahl v. State, 1975 OK CR 107, 536 P.2d 1292, 1975 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 365 (Okla. Ct. App. 1975).

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