POPE v. ILLINOIS

JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), the Court set out a tripartite test for judging whether material is obscene. The third prong of the Miller test requires the trier of fact to determine "whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Id., at 24. The issue in this case is whether, in a prosecution for the sale of allegedly obscene materials, the jury may be instructed to apply community standards in deciding the value question.

I

On July 21, 1983, Rockford, Illinois, police detectives purchased certain magazines from the two petitioners, each of whom was an attendant at an adult bookstore. Petitioners were subsequently charged separately with the offense of "obscenity" for the sale of these magazines. Each petitioner moved to dismiss the charges against him on the ground that the then-current version of the Illinois obscenity statute, Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, ¶ 11-20 (1983), violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Both petitioners argued, among other things, that the statute was unconstitutional in failing to require that the value question be judged "solely on an objective basis as opposed to reference [sic] to contemporary community standards." App. 8, 22.1 Both trial courts rejected this contention and instructed the respective juries to judge whether the material was obscene by determining how it would be viewed by ordinary adults in the whole State of Illinois.2 Both petitioners were found guilty, and both appealed to the Illinois Appellate Court, Second District. That court also rejected petitioners' contention that the issue of value must be determined on an objective basis and not by reference to contemporary community standards. 138 Ill.App.3d 726, 486 N.E.2d 350 (1985); 138 Ill.App.3d 595, 486 N.E.2d 345 (1985). The Illinois Supreme Court denied review, and we granted certiorari, 479 U.S. 812 (1986).

II

There is no suggestion in our cases that the question of the value of an allegedly obscene work is to be determined by reference to community standards. Indeed, our cases are to the contrary. Smith v. United States, 431 U.S. 291 (1977), held that, in a federal prosecution for mailing obscene materials, the first and second prongs of the Miller test — appeal to prurient interest and patent offensiveness — are issues of fact for the jury to determine applying contemporary community standards. The Court then observed that, unlike prurient appeal and patent offensiveness, "[l]iterary, artistic, political, or scientific value . . . is not discussed in Miller in terms of contemporary community standards." Id., at 301 (citing F. Schauer, The Law of Obscenity 123-124 (1976)). This comment was not meant to point out an oversight in the Miller opinion, but to call attention to and approve a deliberate choice.

In Miller itself, the Court was careful to point out that "[t]he First Amendment protects works which, taken as a whole, have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value, regardless of whether the government or a majority of the people approve of the ideas these works represent." 413 U. S., at 34. Just as the ideas a work represents need not obtain majority approval to merit protection, neither, insofar as the First Amendment is concerned, does the value of the work vary from community to community based on the degree of local acceptance it has won. The proper inquiry is not whether an ordinary member of any given community would find serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value in allegedly obscene material, but whether a reasonable person would find such value in the material, taken as a whole.3 The instruction at issue in this case was therefore unconstitutional.

III

The question remains whether the convictions should be reversed outright or are subject to salvage if the erroneous instruction is found to be harmless error. Petitioners contend that the statute is invalid on its face and that the convictions must necessarily be reversed because, as we understand it, the State should not be allowed to preserve any conviction under a law that poses a threat to First Amendment values. But the statute under which petitioners were convicted is no longer on the books; it has been repealed and replaced by a statute that does not call for the application of community standards to the value question.4 Facial invalidation of the repealed statute would not serve the purpose of preventing future prosecutions under a constitutionally defective standard. Cf., e. g., Secretary of State of Maryland v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U.S. 947, 964-968, and n. 13 (1984). And if we did facially invalidate the repealed statute and reverse petitioners' convictions, petitioners could still be retried under that statute, provided that the erroneous instruction was not repeated, because petitioners could not plausibly claim that the repealed statute failed to give them notice that the sale of obscene materials would be prosecuted. See Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 491, n. 7 (1965); United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U.S. 363, 375, n. 3 (1971). Under these circumstances, we see no reason to require a retrial if it can be said beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury's verdict in this case was not affected by the erroneous instruction.

The situation here is comparable to that in Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570 (1986). In Rose, the jury in a murder trial was incorrectly instructed on the element of malice,5 yet the Court held that a harmless-error inquiry was appropriate. The Court explained that in the absence of error that renders a trial fundamentally unfair, such as denial of the right to counsel or trial before a financially interested judge, a conviction should be affirmed "[w]here a reviewing court can find that the record developed at trial established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt . . . ." Id., at 579. The error in Rose did not entirely preclude the jury from considering the element of malice, id., at 580, n. 8, and the fact that the jury could conceivably have had the impermissible presumption in mind when it considered the element of malice was not a reason to retry the defendant if the facts that the jury necessarily found established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.6 The Court said: "When a jury is instructed to presume malice from predicate facts, it still must find the existence of those facts beyond reasonable doubt. Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U.S. 73, 96-97 (1983) (POWELL, J., dissenting). In many cases, the predicate facts conclusively establish intent, so that no rational jury could find that the defendant committed the relevant criminal act but did not intend to cause injury." Id., at 580-581.

Similarly, in the present cases the jurors were not precluded from considering the question of value: they were informed that to convict they must find, among other things, that the magazines petitioners sold were utterly without redeeming social value. While it was error to instruct the juries to use a state community standard in considering the value question, if a reviewing court concludes that no rational juror, if properly instructed, could find value in the magazines, the convictions should stand.7

Although we plainly have the authority to decide whether, on the facts of a given case, a constitutional error was harmless under the standard of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967), we do so sparingly. Rose v. Clark, supra, at 584. In this case the Illinois Appellate Court has not considered the harmless-error issue. We therefore vacate its judgment and remand so that it may do so.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE SCALIA, concurring.

I join the Court's opinion with regard to harmless error because I think it implausible that a community standard embracing the entire State of Illinois would cause any jury to convict where a "reasonable person" standard would not. At least in these circumstances, if a reviewing court concludes that no rational juror, properly instructed, could find value in the magazines, the Constitution is not offended by letting the convictions stand.

I join the Court's opinion with regard to an "objective" or "reasonable person" test of "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value," Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973), because I think that the most faithful assessment of what Miller intended, and because we have not been asked to reconsider Miller in the present case. I must note, however, that in my view it is quite impossible to come to an objective assessment of (at least) literary or artistic value, there being many accomplished people who have found literature in Dada, and art in the replication of a soup can. Since ratiocination has little to do with esthetics, the fabled "reasonable man" is of little help in the inquiry, and would have to be replaced with, perhaps, the "man of tolerably good taste" — a description that betrays the lack of an ascertainable standard. If evenhanded and accurate decisionmaking is not always impossible under such a regime, it is at least impossible in the cases that matter. I think we would be better advised to adopt as a legal maxim what has long been the wisdom of mankind: De gustibus non est disputandum. Just as there is no use arguing about taste, there is no use litigating about it. For the law courts to decide "What is Beauty" is a novelty even by today's standards.

The approach proposed by Part II of JUSTICE STEVENS' dissent does not eliminate this difficulty, but arguably aggravates it. It is a refined enough judgment to estimate whether a reasonable person would find literary or artistic value in a particular publication; it carries refinement to the point of meaninglessness to ask whether he could do so. Taste being, as I have said, unpredictable, the answer to the question must always be "yes" — so that there is little practical difference between that proposal and Part III of JUSTICE STEVENS' dissent, which asserts more forthrightly that "government may not constitutionally criminalize mere possession or sale of obscene literature, absent some connection to minors, or obtrusive display to unconsenting adults." Post, at 513 (footnote omitted).

All of today's opinions, I suggest, display the need for reexamination of Miller.

JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I join Part I of JUSTICE STEVENS' dissenting opinion for I agree with him that "harmless error" analysis may not appropriately be applied to this case. I join Parts I and II of JUSTICE WHITE's opinion for the Court (but not the Court's judgment remanding the case for harmless-error analysis), however, because I believe the standard enunciated in those Parts of that opinion meets the other concerns voiced by the dissent. JUSTICE WHITE points out: "Just as the ideas a work represents need not obtain majority approval to merit protection, neither, insofar as the First Amendment is concerned, does the value of the work vary from community to community based on the degree of local acceptance it has won." Ante, at 500. JUSTICE WHITE further emphasizes: "Of course . . . the mere fact that only a minority of a population may believe a work has serious value does not mean the `reasonable person' standard would not be met." Ante, at 501, n. 3. Thus, contrary to the dissent's characterization, I do not think that "[a]juror asked to create a `reasonable person' in order to apply the standard that the Court announces today might well believe that the majority of the population who find no value in such a book are more reasonable than the minority who do find value." Post, at 512. Rather, the Court's opinion stands for the clear proposition that the First Amendment does not permit a majority to dictate to discrete segments of the population — be they composed of art critics, literary scholars, or scientists — the value that may be found in various pieces of work. That only a minority may find value in a work does not mean that a jury would not conclude that "a reasonable person would find such value in the material, taken as a whole." Ante, at 501. Reasonable people certainly may differ as to what constitutes literary or artistic merit. See ante, at 504 (SCALIA, J., concurring). As I believe JUSTICE SCALIA recognizes in his concurrence (although he may not applaud it), the Court's opinion today envisions that even a minority view among reasonable people that a work has value may protect that work from being judged "obscene."

JUSTICE BRENNAN, dissenting.

JUSTICE STEVENS persuasively demonstrates the unconstitutionality of criminalizing the possession or sale of "obscene" materials to consenting adults. I write separately only to reiterate my view that any regulation of such material with respect to consenting adults suffers from the defect that "the concept of `obscenity' cannot be defined with sufficient specificity and clarity to provide fair notice to persons who create and distribute sexually oriented materials, to prevent substantial erosion of protected speech as a byproduct of the attempt to suppress unprotected speech, and to avoid very costly institutional harms." Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 103 (1973) (BRENNAN, J., dissenting). I therefore join all but footnote 11 of JUSTICE STEVENS' dissent.

JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN joins except as to footnote 11, and with whom JUSTICE BLACKMUN joins as to Part I, dissenting.

The Court correctly holds that the juries that convicted petitioners were given erroneous instructions on one of the three essential elements of an obscenity conviction. Nevertheless, I disagree with its disposition of the case for three separate reasons: (1) the error in the instructions was not harmless; (2) the Court's attempt to clarify the constitutional definition of obscenity is not faithful to the First Amendment; and (3) I do not believe Illinois may criminalize the sale of magazines to consenting adults who enjoy the constitutional right to read and possess them.

I

The distribution of magazines is presumptively protected by the First Amendment. The Court has held, however, that the constitutional protection does not apply to obscene literature. If a state prosecutor can convince the trier of fact that the three components of the obscenity standard set forth in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973), are satisfied, it may, in the Court's view, prohibit the sale of sexually explicit magazines. In a criminal prosecution, the prosecutor must prove each of these three elements beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, in these cases, in addition to the first two elements of the Miller standard, the juries were required to find, on the basis of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that each of the magazines "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Ibid.

The required finding is fundamentally different from a conclusion that a majority of the populace considers the magazines offensive or worthless.1 As the Court correctly holds, the juries in these cases were not instructed to make the required finding; instead, they were asked to decide whether "ordinary adults in the whole State of Illinois" would view the magazines that petitioners sold as having value. App. 11, 25-26. Because of these erroneous instructions, the juries that found petitioners guilty of obscenity did not find one of the essential elements of that crime. This type of omission can never constitute harmless error.2

Just as the constitutional right to trial by jury prohibits a judge from directing a verdict for the prosecution, United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U.S. 564, 572-573 (1977), so too, "a jury's verdict cannot stand if the instructions provided the jury do not require it to find each element of the crime under the proper standard of proof." Cabana v. Bullock, 474 U.S. 376, 384 (1986). As JUSTICE WHITE has explained:

Yet, this is exactly what happened in these cases. Because of the constitutionally erroneous instructions, petitioners were denied a jury determination on one of the critical elements of an obscenity prosecution.

An application of the harmless-error doctrine under these circumstances would not only violate petitioners' constitutional right to trial by jury, but would also pervert the notion of harmless error. When a court is asked to hold that an error that occurred did not interfere with the jury's ability to legitimately reach the verdict that it reached, harmless-error analysis may often be appropriate.3 But this principle cannot apply unless the jury found all of the elements required to support a conviction. The harmless-error doctrine may enable a court to remove a taint from proceedings in order to preserve a jury's findings, but it cannot constitutionally supplement those findings. It is fundamental that an appellate court (and for that matter, a trial court) is not free to decide in a criminal case that, if asked, a jury would have found something that it did not find. We have consistently rejected the possibility of harmless error in these circumstances. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 320, n. 14 (1979); Carpenters v. United States, 330 U.S. 395, 408-409 (1947); Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U.S. 607, 615 (1946); see also Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 196, n. 12 (1977).

The Court suggests that these cases "are no longer good authority" in light of the decision last term in Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570 (1986). See ante, at 503-504, n. 7. I emphatically disagree. In Rose v. Clark the Court held that harmless-error analysis is applicable to instructions that informed the jury of the proper elements of the crime and the proper standard of proof, but impermissibly gave the jury the option of finding one of the elements through a presumption, in violation of Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510 (1979), and Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307 (1985). In holding harmless-error analysis applicable, the Court explained that because the presumption in question "does not remove the issue of intent from the jury's consideration, it is distinguishable from other instructional errors that prevent a jury from considering an issue.' " 478 U. S., at 580, n. 8 (emphasis added), quoting Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U.S. 73, 95, n. 3 (1983) (POWELL, J., dissenting). The Court reasoned that when the evidence is overwhelming on intent, the instruction allowing the jury to use a presumption can be deemed "simply superfluous," 478 U. S., at 581, for as JUSTICE POWELL had earlier stated, in some cases the evidence may be so "dispositive of intent that a reviewing court can say beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have found it unnecessary to rely on the presumption." Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U. S., at 97, n. 5 (dissenting opinion). This case is, of course, far different. No court could ever determine that the instructions on the element were superfluous, since the error in the instructions went to the ultimate fact that the juries were required to find. Rose v. Clark did not modify the precedents requiring that a jury find all of the elements of a crime under the proper standard, any more than it modified the Sixth Amendment's provision that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a . . . trial by an impartial jury."

II

Aside from its error in remanding convictions which must clearly be reversed, the Court announces an obscenity standard that fails to accomplish the goal that the Court ascribes to it. After stressing the need to avoid a mere majoritarian inquiry, the Court states:

The problem with this formulation is that it assumes that all reasonable persons would resolve the value inquiry in the same way. In fact, there are many cases in which some reasonable people would find that specific sexually oriented materials have serious artistic, political, literary, or scientific value, while other reasonable people would conclude that they have no such value. The Court's formulation does not tell the jury how to decide such cases.4

In my judgment, communicative material of this sort is entitled to the protection of the First Amendment if some reasonable persons could consider it as having serious literary artistic, political, or scientific value. Over 40 years ago, the Court recognized that

The purpose of the third element of the Miller test is to ensure that the obscenity laws not be allowed to " `level' the available reading matter to the majority or lowest common denominator of the population. . . . It is obvious that neither Ulysses nor Lady Chatterley's Lover would have literary appeal to the majority of the population." F. Schauer, The Law of Obscenity 144 (1976). A juror asked to create "a reasonable person" in order to apply the standard that the Court announces today might well believe that the majority of the population who find no value in such a book are more reasonable than the minority who do find value.5 First Amendment protection surely must not be contingent on this type of subjective determination.

III

There is an even more basic reason why I believe these convictions must be reversed. The difficulties inherent in the Court's "reasonable person" standard reaffirm my conviction that government may not constitutionally criminalize mere possession or sale of obscene literature, absent some connection to minors or obtrusive display to unconsenting adults.6 During the recent years in which the Court has struggled with the proper definition of obscenity, six Members of the Court have expressed the opinion that the First Amendment, at the very least, precludes criminal prosecutions for sales such as those involved in this case.7 Dissenting in Smith v. United States, 431 U.S. 291 (1977), I explained my view:

The Court has repeatedly recognized that the Constitution "requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement." Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357 (1983).8 These two requirements serve overlapping functions. Not only do vague statutes tend to give rise to selective and arbitrary prosecution, but selective and arbitrary prosecution often lessens the degree to which an actor is on notice that his or her conduct is illegal.

When petitioners Pope and Morrison accepted part-time employment as clerks in the bookstores, they could hardly have been expected to examine the stores' entire inventories, and even if they had, they would have had no way of knowing which, if any, of the magazines being sold were legally "obscene." Perhaps if the enterprise were being carried out in a clandestine manner, it might be fair to impute to them knowledge that something illegal was going on. But these stores both had large signs indicating the nature of the enterprise, one claiming that the store had "The Largest Selection of Adult Merchandise in Northern Illinois." See People's Exhibit No. 3, People v. Morrison, No. 84-cm-4114 (17th Jud. Cir. Ill. 1984).9 The Illinois Appellate Court found that Pope had the necessary scienter because it was "difficult to believe that [he] would not be fully apprised of the type and character of the three magazines simply by looking at them." App. to Pet. for Cert. 19. It is obvious that Pope knew that the magazines were "pornographic," but that does not mean he knew, or should have known, that they were legally "obscene" under the Illinois statute and our precedents.10 It would have been quite reasonable for him to conclude that if sale of the magazines were indeed against the law, then the police would never allow the store to remain in operation, much less publicly advertise its goods.11 Nor would an examination of the statute have given him much guidance.

Under ordinary circumstances, ignorance of the law is no excuse for committing a crime. But that principle presupposes a penal statute that adequately puts citizens on notice of what is illegal. The Constitution cannot tolerate schemes that criminalize categories of speech that the Court has conceded to be so vague and uncertain that they cannot "be defined legislatively." Smith v. United States, 431 U. S., at 303. If a legislature cannot define the crime, Richard Pope and Michael Morrison should not be expected to. Criminal prosecution under these circumstances "may be as much of a trap for the innocent as the ancient laws of Caligula." United States v. Cardiff, 344 U.S. 174, 176 (1952).

Concern with the vagueness inherent in criminal obscenity statutes is not the only constitutional objection to the criminalization of the sale of sexually explicit material (not involving children) to consenting adults. In Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), the Court held that Georgia could not criminalize the mere possession of obscene matter. The decision was grounded upon a recognition that "[o]ur whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds." Id., at 565. The only justification we could find for the law there was Georgia's desire to "protect the individual's mind from the effects of obscenity," ibid., and we concluded that such a desire to "control the moral content of a person's thoughts . . . is wholly inconsistent with the philosophy of the First Amendment." Id., at 565-566.

The Court has adopted a restrictive reading of Stanley, opining that it has no implications to the criminalization of the sale or distribution of obscenity. See United States v. Reidel, 402 U.S. 351 (1971); United States v. 12 200-Ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S. 123 (1973). But such a crabbed approach offends the overarching First Amendment principles discussed in Stanley, almost as much as it insults the citizenry by declaring its right to read and possess material which it may not legally obtain.12 In Stanley, the Court recognized that there are legitimate reasons for the State to regulate obscenity: protecting children and protecting the sensibilities of unwilling viewers. 394 U. S., at 507. But surely a broad criminal prohibition on all sale of obscene material cannot survive simply because the State may constitutionally restrict public display or prohibit sale of the material to minors.

As was the case in Smith, "I do not know whether the ugly pictures in this record have any beneficial value." 431 U. S., at 319 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). I do know though:

I respectfully dissent.