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BUTLER v. MICHIGAN, 352 U.S. 380 (1957)
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The U.S. Supreme Court held that statutes intended to protect
children from harmful speech may not deny adults access to speech
that this not legally obscene
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|
BUTLER v. MICHIGAN, 352 U.S. 380 (1957)
|
|
The U.S. Supreme Court held that statutes intended to protect
children from harmful speech may not deny adults access to speech
that this not legally obscene
|
352 U.S. 380 (1957)
BUTLER v. MICHIGAN.
APPEAL FROM THE RECORDER'S COURT OF THE CITY OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN.
No. 16.
Argued October 16, 1956.
Decided February 25, 1957.
Section 343 of the Michigan Penal Code, in effect, makes it a
misdemeanor to sell or make available to the general reading
public any book containing obscene language "tending to the corruption
of the morals of youth." For selling to an adult police officer
a book which the trial judge found to have such a potential effect
on youth, appellant was convicted of a violation of this section.
Held: The statute violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, and the conviction is reversed. Pp. 380-384.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court....
It is clear on the record that appellant was convicted because
Michigan, by 343, made it an offense for him to make available
for the general reading public (and he in fact sold to a police
officer) a book that the trial judge [352 U.S. 380, 383] found
to have a potentially deleterious influence upon youth. The State insists that, by thus quarantining the general reading
public against books not too rugged for grown men and women in
order to shield juvenile innocence, it is exercising its power
to promote the general welfare. Surely, this is to burn the house to roast the pig. Indeed, the Solicitor General of Michigan has, with characteristic
candor, advised the Court that Michigan has a statute specifically
designed to protect its children against obscene matter "tending
to the corruption of the morals of youth." * But the appellant
was not convicted for violating this statute.
We have before us legislation not reasonably restricted to the
evil with which it is said to deal. The incidence of this enactment is to reduce the adult population
of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children. It thereby
[352 U.S. 380, 384] arbitrarily curtails one of those liberties
of the individual, now enshrined in the Due Process Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment, that history has attested as the indispensable
conditions for the maintenance and progress of a free society. We are constrained to reverse this conviction.
