Me. Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was convicted of selling material which had been judicially declared obscene. At his trial he was not permitted to litigate the obscenity vel non of the publication which was the basis of his prosecution, even though he had not been a party to the earlier civil adjudication in which it was held obscene. We granted certiorari, 422 U. S. 1040 (1975), to consider whether this procedure comported with our decisions delineating the safeguards which must attend attempts by the States to prohibit dissemination of expression asserted to be protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments against such interference. We reverse.
I
Pursuant to the authority conferred upon him by Ala. Code, Tit. 14, c. 64A (Supp. 1973),1 the District Attorney [671]*671of the 13th Judicial Circuit of Alabama instituted an action in equity in the Circuit Court of Mobile County seeking an adjudication of the obscenity of certain mailable matter. On February 26, 1970, the Circuit Court entered a decree which announced that the four maga[672]*672zines named in the action were “judicially declared to be obscene.” Twelve days later two officers of the State Attorney General's office went to the Paris Bookstall in Birmingham, Ala., a place of business operated by petitioner. They personally delivered to petitioner a letter from the Attorney General informing him of the decree of the Circuit Court of Mobile County and specifying the magazines which had been declared obscene.
On March 31, these officers returned to the Paris Bookstall and there purchased, from petitioner, a copy of the magazine New Directions, which had been specified in the Circuit Court decree and listed in the letter delivered to petitioner. Petitioner was thereafter charged with violating Ala. Code, Tit. 14, § 374 (4) (Supp. 1973),2 by [673]*673selling “mailable matter known ... to have been judicially found to be obscene.”
At petitioner’s trial for this offense he asserted as a defense his claim that the magazine was not obscene and sought to have this issue submitted to the jury. Petitioner claimed that he could not be found guilty unless the trier of fact in his case made its own determination that the magazine was obscene according to contemporary community standards. The trial court declined to submit this issue to the jury and instructed the jurors that they were not to be concerned with any determination of obscenity, and that they need only decide whether petitioner had sold material judicially declared to be obscene. The jury returned a verdict of guilty.
Petitioner unsuccessfully appealed this judgment to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, whereupon the Alabama Supreme Court granted his petition for certio-rari. That court, by a divided vote, also affirmed the judgment of conviction. It ruled that the trial court had properly restricted the issues presented to the jury because the decree of the Mobile County Circuit Court was one in rem, conclusively establishing the obscenity of the magazines against all the world. The determination of obscenity in that action was therefore held binding upon petitioner in his subsequent criminal prosecution even though he had not been a party to the earlier equity proceeding. 292 Ala. 484, 296 So. 2d 228 (1974).
II
Petitioner contends that the procedures utilized by the State of Alabama, insofar as they precluded him from litigating the obscenity vel non of New Directions as a defense to his criminal prosecution, violated the First and Fourteenth Améndments. We agree. While there can be no doubt under our cases that obscene materials are beyond the protection of the First Amendment, Roth [674]*674v. United States, 354 U. S. 476 (1957); Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15 (1973); those decisions have also consistently recognized that the procedures by which a State ascertains whether certain materials are obscene must be ones which ensure “the necessary sensitivity to freedom of expression,” Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51, 58 (1965); Heller v. New York, 413 U. S. 483, 489 (1973). The Alabama statutory scheme at issue here, as applied to petitioner, fails to meet this requirement.
It is undisputed that petitioner received no notice of the Mobile Circuit Court equity proceeding, and that he therefore had no opportunity to be heard therein regarding the adjudication of the obscenity vel non of New Directions.3 Yet the State nevertheless seeks to finally bind him, as well as all other potential purveyors of the magazines described in the Mobile proceeding, to the result reached in that proceeding. There is nothing in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Alabama indicating that petitioner had available to him any judicial avenue for initiating a challenge to the Mobile declaration as to the obscenity of New Directions. Decrees resulting from in rem proceedings initiated under Chapter 64A of the Alabama Code ¡could in some cases therefore have the same effect as would the ex parte determination of a state censorship authority which unilaterally found material offensive and proscribed its distribution. Such a procedure, without any provision for subsequent re-examination of the determination of the censor, would clearly be constitutionally infirm.
[675]*675The State asserts, however, that the Mobile proceeding was an “adversary judicial proceeding” as contemplated by our decisions, Freedman, supra, at 58; Heller, supra, at 489, and that relevant First Amendment values have thereby been adequately safeguarded. We cannot agree. The Chapter 64A proceeding was indeed “judicial” in the sense that it was presided over by a judge rather than an administrative official. But the State's claim regarding the adversary nature of the in rem proceeding is somewhat wide of the mark.
It is not altogether clear from this record precisely what transpired at the hearing in which New Directions was declared obscene. It does appear that there were, in addition to the several magazines named as “respondents” in the proceeding,4 an individual and a corporate respondent: “Chris Zarocastas, individually and d/b/a Nelson’s News Stand; [and] Nelson’s News Stand, Inc., a Corporation, d/b/a Nelson’s News Stand.” The State contends that the existence5 of these named parties provides sufficient adverseness in the proceedings to permit its use of the adjudication thus obtained to bind non-parties such as petitioner.
Our difficulty with this argument is its assumption that the named parties’ interests are sufficiently identical to those of petitioner that they will adequately protect his First Amendment rights. There is no indication that they are in privity with him, as that term is used in determining the binding effects of judgments. See Litchfield v. Goodnow’s Adm’r, 123 U. S. 549, 551 (1887).
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Me. Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was convicted of selling material which had been judicially declared obscene. At his trial he was not permitted to litigate the obscenity vel non of the publication which was the basis of his prosecution, even though he had not been a party to the earlier civil adjudication in which it was held obscene. We granted certiorari, 422 U. S. 1040 (1975), to consider whether this procedure comported with our decisions delineating the safeguards which must attend attempts by the States to prohibit dissemination of expression asserted to be protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments against such interference. We reverse.
I
Pursuant to the authority conferred upon him by Ala. Code, Tit. 14, c. 64A (Supp. 1973),1 the District Attorney [671]*671of the 13th Judicial Circuit of Alabama instituted an action in equity in the Circuit Court of Mobile County seeking an adjudication of the obscenity of certain mailable matter. On February 26, 1970, the Circuit Court entered a decree which announced that the four maga[672]*672zines named in the action were “judicially declared to be obscene.” Twelve days later two officers of the State Attorney General's office went to the Paris Bookstall in Birmingham, Ala., a place of business operated by petitioner. They personally delivered to petitioner a letter from the Attorney General informing him of the decree of the Circuit Court of Mobile County and specifying the magazines which had been declared obscene.
On March 31, these officers returned to the Paris Bookstall and there purchased, from petitioner, a copy of the magazine New Directions, which had been specified in the Circuit Court decree and listed in the letter delivered to petitioner. Petitioner was thereafter charged with violating Ala. Code, Tit. 14, § 374 (4) (Supp. 1973),2 by [673]*673selling “mailable matter known ... to have been judicially found to be obscene.”
At petitioner’s trial for this offense he asserted as a defense his claim that the magazine was not obscene and sought to have this issue submitted to the jury. Petitioner claimed that he could not be found guilty unless the trier of fact in his case made its own determination that the magazine was obscene according to contemporary community standards. The trial court declined to submit this issue to the jury and instructed the jurors that they were not to be concerned with any determination of obscenity, and that they need only decide whether petitioner had sold material judicially declared to be obscene. The jury returned a verdict of guilty.
Petitioner unsuccessfully appealed this judgment to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, whereupon the Alabama Supreme Court granted his petition for certio-rari. That court, by a divided vote, also affirmed the judgment of conviction. It ruled that the trial court had properly restricted the issues presented to the jury because the decree of the Mobile County Circuit Court was one in rem, conclusively establishing the obscenity of the magazines against all the world. The determination of obscenity in that action was therefore held binding upon petitioner in his subsequent criminal prosecution even though he had not been a party to the earlier equity proceeding. 292 Ala. 484, 296 So. 2d 228 (1974).
II
Petitioner contends that the procedures utilized by the State of Alabama, insofar as they precluded him from litigating the obscenity vel non of New Directions as a defense to his criminal prosecution, violated the First and Fourteenth Améndments. We agree. While there can be no doubt under our cases that obscene materials are beyond the protection of the First Amendment, Roth [674]*674v. United States, 354 U. S. 476 (1957); Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15 (1973); those decisions have also consistently recognized that the procedures by which a State ascertains whether certain materials are obscene must be ones which ensure “the necessary sensitivity to freedom of expression,” Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51, 58 (1965); Heller v. New York, 413 U. S. 483, 489 (1973). The Alabama statutory scheme at issue here, as applied to petitioner, fails to meet this requirement.
It is undisputed that petitioner received no notice of the Mobile Circuit Court equity proceeding, and that he therefore had no opportunity to be heard therein regarding the adjudication of the obscenity vel non of New Directions.3 Yet the State nevertheless seeks to finally bind him, as well as all other potential purveyors of the magazines described in the Mobile proceeding, to the result reached in that proceeding. There is nothing in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Alabama indicating that petitioner had available to him any judicial avenue for initiating a challenge to the Mobile declaration as to the obscenity of New Directions. Decrees resulting from in rem proceedings initiated under Chapter 64A of the Alabama Code ¡could in some cases therefore have the same effect as would the ex parte determination of a state censorship authority which unilaterally found material offensive and proscribed its distribution. Such a procedure, without any provision for subsequent re-examination of the determination of the censor, would clearly be constitutionally infirm.
[675]*675The State asserts, however, that the Mobile proceeding was an “adversary judicial proceeding” as contemplated by our decisions, Freedman, supra, at 58; Heller, supra, at 489, and that relevant First Amendment values have thereby been adequately safeguarded. We cannot agree. The Chapter 64A proceeding was indeed “judicial” in the sense that it was presided over by a judge rather than an administrative official. But the State's claim regarding the adversary nature of the in rem proceeding is somewhat wide of the mark.
It is not altogether clear from this record precisely what transpired at the hearing in which New Directions was declared obscene. It does appear that there were, in addition to the several magazines named as “respondents” in the proceeding,4 an individual and a corporate respondent: “Chris Zarocastas, individually and d/b/a Nelson’s News Stand; [and] Nelson’s News Stand, Inc., a Corporation, d/b/a Nelson’s News Stand.” The State contends that the existence5 of these named parties provides sufficient adverseness in the proceedings to permit its use of the adjudication thus obtained to bind non-parties such as petitioner.
Our difficulty with this argument is its assumption that the named parties’ interests are sufficiently identical to those of petitioner that they will adequately protect his First Amendment rights. There is no indication that they are in privity with him, as that term is used in determining the binding effects of judgments. See Litchfield v. Goodnow’s Adm’r, 123 U. S. 549, 551 (1887). And we recognized in Freedman that‘individual exhibi[676]*676tors as well as distributors may be unwilling, for various reasons, to oppose a state claim of obscenity regarding certain material. 380 U. S., at 59. Such parties may, of course, make their own determination whether and how vigorously to assert their own First Amendment rights. The Constitution obviously cannot force anyone to exercise the freedom of expression which it guarantees. Those who are accorded an opportunity to be heard in a judicial proceeding established for determining the extent of their rights are properly bound by its outcome, either because they chose not to contest the State’s claim or because they chose to do so and lost.
But it does not follow that a decision reached in such proceedings should conclusively determine the First Amendment rights of others. Nonparties like petitioner may assess quite differently the strength of their constitutional claims and may, of course, have very different views regarding the desirability of disseminating particular materials. We think they must be given the opportunity to make these assessments themselves, as well as the chance to litigate the issues if they so choose.
The State asserts that invalidation of petitioner’s conviction will seriously undermine the use of civil proceedings to examine the protected character of specific materials, procedures which according to respondent offer marked advantages for all concerned over dealing with obscenity only in case-by-case criminal prosecutions. Petitioner, however, was convicted and sentenced in a criminal proceeding wherein the issue of obscenity vel non was held to be concluded against him by the decree in a civil proceeding to which he was not a party and of which he had no notice. Thus we need not condemn civil proceedings in general, see Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U. S. 49, 55 (1973), to conclude that this procedure fails to meet the standards required where First Amendment interests are at stake.
[677]*677Petitioner’s conviction must be vacated so that he may be afforded the opportunity to litigate in some forum the issue of the obscenity of New Directions before he may be convicted of selling obscene material.6 The judgment of the Supreme Court of Alabama is therefore reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Me. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.