People v. Vickery

244 N.W.2d 404, 69 Mich. App. 183, 1976 Mich. App. LEXIS 737
CourtMichigan Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 27, 1976
DocketDocket 22849-22851
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 244 N.W.2d 404 (People v. Vickery) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Vickery, 244 N.W.2d 404, 69 Mich. App. 183, 1976 Mich. App. LEXIS 737 (Mich. Ct. App. 1976).

Opinions

V. J. Brennan, J.

We must determine if a municipality may enact ordinances imposing criminal liability for the display of obscene motion pictures and, if possessing the authority to do so, the City of East Detroit has enacted ordinances that are permissible under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.1

The City of East Detroit, in July 1973, enacted ordinances purporting to punish obscenity. The regulations that are pertinent to this case are set out in the margin.2 In October, 1973, defendants— [187]*187president, manager, and projectionist of the Capri Theatre — were charged with violating the ordinances by the theatre’s showing of "The Collegiates”. They were found guilty of violating the ordinances after a bench trial in the East Detroit Municipal Court.

On appeal, the Macomb County Circuit Court ruled that a municipality is without power to "legislate for itself its own standards as to what is and what is not obscenity * * * [L]ocal communities shall have the right to determine by local juries what standards should apply, but these standards are applied by local juries and courts of law under prosecution of applicable state law”.

The circuit court apparently based this legal conclusion on its interpretation of United States Supreme Court obscenity cases.

The people bring this appeal, contending that, [188]*188because a municipality may enact obscenity ordinances and because these particular ordinances are constitutionally sound, defendants’ convictions under the ordinances may stand. Defendants argue that East Detroit lacked the authority to enact the ordinances, and even if authority existed, the ordinances do not pass constitutional muster because of their lack of requisite specificity.

I. Municipality authority to enact obscenity ordinances.

A. Under United States Constitutional Law.

We find nothing in the U. S. Constitution or in Supreme Court obscenity cases that would prohibit municipalities from enacting criminal obscenity ordinances. In fact, our research indicates that the Supreme Court has given tacit, if not outright, approval of municipal regulation of obscenity.

It is true, as defendants note, that Miller v California, 413 US 15; 93 S Ct 2607; 37 L Ed 2d 419 (1973), repeatedly discusses "state” regulation of obscenity:

"[W]e are called on to define the standards which must be used to identify obscene material that a state may regulate without infringing the First Amendment as applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.” (Emphasis added.) 413 US at 19-20; 93 S Ct at 2612; 37 L Ed 2d at 428.

"The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be:

" * * * (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law.”413 US at 24; 93 S Ct at 2615; 37 L Ed 2d at 431. (Emphasis added.)

However, because the Miller case involved the constitutionality of a State of California statute, it is understandable that the Court posed the issue and undertook the analysis with reference to "a [189]*189state”. Neither Miller, nor the subsequent obscenity cases of Hamling v United States, 418 US 87; 94 S Ct 2887; 41 L Ed 2d 590 (1974), and Jenkins v Georgia, 418 US 153; 94 S Ct 2750; 41 L Ed 2d 642 (1974) , raised the precise issue of a municipality’s ability to regulate obscenity.

Hamling and Jenkins, by allowing a juror "to draw on knowledge of the community or vicinage from which he comes in deciding what conclusion 'the average person, applying contemporary community standards’ would reach in a given case”, 418 US at 105; 94 S Ct at 2901; 41 L Ed 2d at 613, acknowledged that local community mores may be determinative of obscenity. It follows from this recognition of the importance of community standards that municipalities can regulate obscenity without necessarily running afoul of the First Amendment.

A recent Supreme Court case involving First Amendment issues, though not specifically addressing obscenity questions, implicitly suggests that municipal ordinances regulating speech will not be struck down merely because they are municipal ordinances rather than state statutes. Erznoznik v City of Jacksonville, 422 US 205, 207 n 3; 95 S Ct 2268, 2272 n 3; 45 L Ed 2d 125, 130 n 3 (1975) . For U. S. Constitutional Law purposes, a municipal ordinance may be considered state law. We conclude that there is no absolute prohibition against municipalities regulating obscenity to be found in cases interpreting the U. S. Constitution. See also Times Film Corp v Chicago, 365 US 43; 81 S Ct 391; 5 L Ed 2d 403 (1961).

B. Under Michigan law.

The City of East Detroit is a home rule city with powers under MCLA 117.4i(9); MSA 5.2082(9) to adopt a charter that provides for:

[190]*190"the enforcement of all such local, police, sanitary and other regulations as are not in conflict with the general laws.”

The home rule statutory scheme3 also provides-that a city charter may provide:

"For the exercise of all municipal powers in the management and control of municipal property and in the administration of the municipal government, whether such powers be expressly enumerated or not; for any act to advance the interests of the city, the good government and prosperity of the municipality and its inhabitants and through its regularly constituted authority to pass all laws and ordinances relating to its municipal concerns subject to the constitution and general laws of this state.” MCLA 117.4j(3); MSA 5.2083(3).

The city’s revised charter, c 2, § I, provides that the city may regulate or prevent all things "detrimental to the health, morals, comfort, safety, convenience and welfare of the inhabitants of the city”. Pursuant to this charter authority, the city council adopted the aforementioned obscenity ordinances.4

We must determine whether obscenity regulation is a "municipal concern”. If a municipal concern, we must consider whether the state statutory provisions on obscenity preempt municipal [191]*191regulation. Finally, if there is no preemption, we must decide whether or not there is a conflict between the state statute and the municipal ordinance.

1. "Municipal concern”

Both the Michigan Constitution, art 7, § 22, and the home rule statute, MCLA 117.4j(3); MSA 5.2083(3), limit municipal regulatory authority to areas of "municipal concern”. As the constitutionality of an ordinance is presumed, People v Sell, 310 Mich 305, 314; 17 NW2d 193, 195 (1945), defendants bear the burden of showing that the obscenity ordinances are of no municipal concern in that they bear no real or substantive relation to the public health, morals, safety, or general welfare of the municipality. See Austin v Older, 283 Mich 667, 674; 278 NW 727 (1938), and Kalita v Detroit, 57 Mich App 696, 703; 226 NW2d 699 (1975). The defendants have not met that burden.

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Related

Bundo v. Liquor Control Commission
283 N.W.2d 860 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1979)
People v. Vickery
244 N.W.2d 404 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1976)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
244 N.W.2d 404, 69 Mich. App. 183, 1976 Mich. App. LEXIS 737, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-vickery-michctapp-1976.