Jacobellis v. Ohio - Significance, Defining Obscenity, Other Opinions: "i Know It When I See It", Consequences Of Jacobellis

appellant john obscene decision

Appellant

Nico Jacobellis

Appellee

State of Ohio

Appellant's Claim

That under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, he should not have been punished for showing The Lovers, a film deemed obscene under Ohio State law.

Chief Lawyer for Appellant

John T. Corrigan

Chief Lawyer for Appellee

Ephraim London

Justices for the Court

Hugo Lafayette Black, William J. Brennan, Jr. (writing for the Court), William O. Douglas, Arthur Goldberg, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White

Justices Dissenting

Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, Earl Warren

Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision

22 June 1964

Decision

The film was not obscene and Jacobellis' conviction should be overturned.

Related Cases

Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).
Kingsley Pictures Corp. v. Regents of the University of the State of New York, 360 U.S. 684 (1959).
Manual Enterprises, Inc., v. Day, 370 U.S. 478 (1962).
Bantam Books Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58 (1963).
Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973).
Jenkins v. Georgia, 418 U.S. 153 (1974).

Sources

Grazia, Edward de and Roger K. Newman. Banned Films: Movies, Censors and the First Amendment. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1982.

Additional Topics

Jacobellis v. Ohio - Significance

This was a landmark case that helped define the legal standards for determining obscenity. In 1964, movie theater manager Nico Jacobellis was convicted of exhibiting an obscene movie, Louis Malle's Les Amants, "The Lovers." The advertising for the film made it sound quite daring:"When all conventions explode . . . in the most daring love story ever filmed!" "As close to authentic amour as is possi…

Jacobellis v. Ohio - Defining Obscenity

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court decided that Jacobellis had been wrongly convicted. By no stretch of the imagination could The Lovers be called obscene. Yet Jacobellis displayed the wide diversity of opinion about what constitutes obscenity and who should judge. Justice Brennan announced the judgment of the Court and was joined in his opinion by Justice Goldberg. Brennan reiterated that obsce…

Jacobellis v. Ohio - Other Opinions: "i Know It When I See It"

Justices Warren and Clark dissented. They believed that community standards of the local area in which the work was being prosecuted should be invoked. And Justice Harlan, another dissenter, believed that while federal laws had to define obscenity very narrowly, states had somewhat more latitude in making these judgments. However, the dissenters were not the only ones to express individual opinion…

Jacobellis v. Ohio - Banned Films

Banned Films: Movies, Censors and the First Amendment, lists 122 films which, for "political, religious, moral, [or] sexual reasons," were the focus of censorship cases between 1908 and 1981. In The Encyclopedia of Censorship, published eight years later, only five more films were listed, suggesting that the bulk of these legal actions took place earlier in the history of film rather than later. T…

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