Yorko v. State

690 S.W.2d 260, 1985 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1395
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 22, 1985
Docket470-84
StatusPublished
Cited by38 cases

This text of 690 S.W.2d 260 (Yorko v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Yorko v. State, 690 S.W.2d 260, 1985 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1395 (Tex. 1985).

Opinions

OPINION ON APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW

THOMAS G. DAVIS, Judge.

Appellant pled not guilty to a misdemeanor information charging possession with intent to sell an obscene device, namely a dildo. The trial court found appellant guilty and assessed three days in jail and a fine of $750.00. The Fourteenth Court of Appeals (Houston) affirmed the conviction, holding that Sections 43.21(a)(7) and 43.-23(c)(1) of the Penal Code do not violate the right of privacy guaranteed by the United States Constitution or deprive citizens of substantive due process under the Texas Constitution. Yorko v. State, 681 S.W.2d 633 (Tex.App.1984). We granted appellant’s petition for discretionary review to examine the holdings.

The statutes at issue read as follows:

“43.21. Definitions
“ ‘Obscene device’ means a device including a dildo or artificial vagina, designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.” “43.23. Obscenity
“(c) A person commits an offense if, knowing its content and character, he: “(1) promotes1 or possesses with intent to promote any ... obscene device; ...”

Appellant contends that these provisions, “on their face and as applied in the circumstances of this case, are unconstitutional under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States because they violate the individual right of privacy.”

We are unable to review the constitutionality of the statutes “as applied in the circumstances of this case” because the record contains no evidence of what those circumstances were. The record contains neither a statement of facts nor a written stipulation of evidence. Nor does appel[262]*262lant’s brief analyze the application of the statutes to the facts of the case. The state of the record thus permits review of the facial constitutionality only.

Appellant takes care to deny that his challenge rests on the ground of vagueness or overbreadth. He does not dispute the holding of Sewell v. State, 238 Ga. 495, 233 S.E.2d 187 (1977), appeal dismissed for want of a substantial federal question, sub. nom. Sewell v. Georgia, 435 U.S. 982, 98 S.Ct. 1635, 56 L.Ed.2d 76 (1978), which rejected a vagueness and overbreadth challenge to a Georgia statute virtually the same as the statute at issue here. Nor does appellant claim that the statutes deny him equal protection of the law. .

Appellant claims, rather, that the statutes violate the fundamental right of privacy announced in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965) and elaborated in subsequent cases, notably Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973).

In Roe v. Wade, supra, the Court wrote: “The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 [11 S.Ct. 1000, 1001, 35 L.Ed. 734] (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment, Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564 [89 S.Ct. 1243, 1247, 22 L.Ed.2d 542] (1969); in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 8-9 [88 S.Ct. 1868, 1872-1873, 20 L.Ed.2d 889] (1968), Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 350 [88 S.Ct. 507, 510, 19 L.Ed.2d 576] (1967), Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 [6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746] (1886), see Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478 [48 S.Ct. 564, 572, 72 L.Ed. 944] (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting); in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. at 484-485 [85 S.Ct. at 1681-1682]; in the Ninth Amendment, id., at 486 [85 S.Ct. at 1682] (Goldberg, J., concurring); or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, see Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 [43 S.Ct. 625, 626, 67 L.Ed. 1042] (1923). These decision make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed ‘fundamental’ or ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,’ Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325 [58 S.Ct. 149, 152, 82 L.Ed. 288] (1937), are included in this guarantee of personal privacy. They also make it clear that the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12 [87 S.Ct. 1817, 1823, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010] (1967); procreation, Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541-542 [62 S.Ct. 1110, 1113-1114, 86 L.Ed. 1655] (1942); contraception, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. [438] at 453-454 [92 S.Ct. [1029] at 1038-1039] [31 L.Ed.2d 349]; id., at 460, 463-465 [92 S.Ct. at 1041, 1043-1044] (White, J., concurring in result); family relationships, Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166 [64 S.Ct. 438, 442, 88 L.Ed. 645] (1944); and child rearing and education, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 535 [45 S.Ct. 571, 573, 69 L.Ed. 1070] (1925), Meyer v. Nebraska, supra.
“This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy....”

410 U.S. at 152-53, 93 S.Ct. at 726-27. Appellant argues that:

“Clearly one significant element of the constitutional right of privacy is the individual’s interest in making certain kinds of important decision.” Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589, 599-600 [, 97 S.Ct. 869, 876-877, 51 L.Ed.2d 64, 73 (1977)].

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Bluebook (online)
690 S.W.2d 260, 1985 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1395, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/yorko-v-state-texcrimapp-1985.