State v. Louisiana Toy Co., Inc.

483 So. 2d 1264, 1986 La. App. LEXIS 6122
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 14, 1986
DocketKA-2903
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 483 So. 2d 1264 (State v. Louisiana Toy Co., Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Louisiana Toy Co., Inc., 483 So. 2d 1264, 1986 La. App. LEXIS 6122 (La. Ct. App. 1986).

Opinion

483 So.2d 1264 (1986)

STATE of Louisiana
v.
LOUISIANA TOY CO., INC. and James M. Parris.

No. KA-2903.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.

February 14, 1986.
Writ Denied May 16, 1986.

*1265 William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harry F. Connick, Dist. Atty., Timothy M. Warner, Asst. Dist. Atty., New Orleans, for plaintiff-appellee, State.

Ronald J. Rakosky, New Orleans, John H. Weston, Brown, Weston & Sarno, Beverly Hills, Cal., for defendants-appellants, Louisiana Toy Co., Inc. and James M. Parris.

Before CIACCIO, WARD and WILLIAMS, JJ.

WARD, Judge.

James M. Parris and Louisiana Toy Company appeal their convictions of the crime of obscenity by challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana's obscenity statute, La.R.S. 14:106. Parris and Louisiana Toy Company, of which he is president, were charged in a series of six cases with a total of 20 counts of distributing obscene films and video tapes in violation of La.R.S. 14:106(A)(3). Parris and the corporation both filed motions to quash their respective bills of information on a number of constitutional grounds. After a hearing, the Trial Court denied the motions. Both appellants then entered guilty pleas pursuant to State v. Crosby, 338 So.2d 584 (La.1976), and North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 91 S.Ct. 160, 27 L.Ed.2d 162 (1970), reserving their right to reassert their constitutional challenges in this Court.

Appellants first contend that the statute unconstitutionally discriminates between classes of individuals who disseminate materials presumptively protected by the free speech provisions of the United States and the Louisiana Constitutions. The portion of the obscenity statute challenged by this contention is La.R.S. 14:106 F(1):

Except for those motion pictures, printed materials, and photographic materials showing actual ultimate sexual acts or simulated or animated ultimate sexual acts when there is an explicit, closeup depiction of human genital organs so as to give the appearance of the consummation of ultimate sexual acts, no person, firm, or corporation shall be arrested, charged, or indicted for any violations of a provision of this Section until such time as the material involved has first been the subject of an adversary hearing under the provisions of this Section, wherein such person, firm or corporation is made a defendant and, after such material is declared by the court to be obscene, such person, firm, or corporation continues to engage in the conduct prohibited by this Section. The sole issue at the hearing shall be whether the material is obscene.

This subsection was added to the obscenity statute in its 1974 re-enactment in an attempt to protect against unwarranted prosecution for dissemination of materials arguably protected by the First Amendment. The hearing provision of Subsection F amplified and replaced the procedure which had been established by the Supreme Court in State v. Eros Cinema, Inc., 262 La. 706, 719-20, 264 So.2d 615, 620 (1972). The new procedure provided pre-arrest adversary hearings—but only for purveyors of material that does not contain the explicit depictions described by the statute. Sellers who are entitled to a hearing may be prosecuted only if they persist in the prohibited conduct after the court declares their materials obscene. In contrast, sellers of materials which contain the described sexual depictions may be prosecuted without a hearing to determine whether the materials are obscene. Appellants, whose films and video tapes meet the requirement for prosecution without a hearing, claim that this disparate treatment *1266 violates their right to equal protection of the law in the exercise of their First Amendment rights.

Our Supreme Court has approved the use of the adversary hearing procedure of Subsection F and has reviewed findings of those hearings. See, for example, State v. Walden Book Co., 386 So.2d 342 (La.1980). The provisions of Subsection F have withstood a constitutional attack on the grounds of vagueness. State v. Luck, 353 So.2d 225, 228 (La.1977). No appellate court of this state, however, has decided whether the procedure unconstitutionally denies equal protection of the law, although the issue was presented to the Federal District Court in Pollitt v. Connick, 596 F.Supp. 261 (E.D.La.1984). That Court held Subsection F constitutional.

In this case, Appellants urge that because the classification impairs their freedom of expression, we should subject it to strict scrutiny in our determination of whether it violates equal protection. We disagree. Statutes which attempt to suppress obscenity do not suppress speech or expression protected by the First Amendment. Stated otherwise, obscenity is not a form of expression protected by the First Amendment. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973); Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957); State v. Amato, 343 So.2d 698 (La.1977). Therefore, the constitutionality of obscenity statutes, like other statutes that do not impinge upon First Amendment rights, is presumed. Obscenity statutes are subjected to a test which inquires merely whether they are a rational means of achieving a legitimate governmental purpose. See State v. Luck, 353 So.2d 225, 232 (La.1977).

Like the Federal District Court in Pollitt v. Connick, we find that the Legislature provided for differing treatment under R.S. 14:106 F to achieve legitimate governmental purposes:

The exception created in paragraph F(1) enables the authorities to take immediate legal action against purveyors of material that the legislature has determined is blatantly and presumptively obscene, without the delays inherent in a prearrest adversarial hearing, thereby minimizing public harm. Simultaneously, paragraph F(1) helps to protect the first amendment rights of purveyors of material that is not blatantly and presumptively obscene, that may arguably fall within the gray area straddling the border between the obscene and the not obscene, and that may arguably not even be obscene at all.

596 F.Supp. at 267-68.

Although we are not bound by the Federal District Court's analysis nor by its decision, we agree with it and also find that Subsection F represents a reasonable means of protecting the public from obscene materials while at the same time safeguarding constitutionally protected expression by removing the chill of potential criminal prosecution. Moreover, because a pre-arrest adversary hearing is not constitutionally required, State v. Walters, 440 So.2d 115, 119 (La.1983), and because states have broad powers to regulate obscenity, the Legislature was free to achieve its purposes by any rational procedures, including exceptions to the hearing provision.

Appellants argue that the statute is irrational because it in effect "draws the line in the wrong place," there being no guarantee that materials of the explicitness described by the statute are obscene as a matter of fact or law. We are not called upon, however, to determine whether the Legislature's line-drawing was correct, but merely whether it was rational.

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Related

State v. Video Joe, Inc.
578 So. 2d 182 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1991)
State v. Honore
564 So. 2d 345 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1990)
State v. Freeman
544 So. 2d 22 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1989)
State v. Louisiana Toy Co.
488 So. 2d 686 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1986)

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