Skip to main content
Obscenity–What Is the Test

Abstract

In Regina v. Hicklin Chief Justice Cockburn laid down a test for obscenity in the following words:

I think the test of obscenity is this: Whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.

Although this test was accepted and followed by courts in this country, acceptance was not always accompanied with approval, and in Roth v. United States the Hicklin test was rejected as unconstitutionally restrictive of the freedoms of speech and press. With this rejection it became necessary to formulate a new test.

How to Cite

5 Ariz. L. Rev. 265 (Spring 1964)

Downloads

Download PDF

102

Views

66

Downloads

Share

Author

Downloads

Issue

Publication details

Licence

All rights reserved

File Checksums (MD5)

  • PDF: 814a797718d68996ff9d6ef186e4cdd7