The United States Supreme Court: Definitions of Obscenity

1972 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-67
Author(s):  
Marc Schnall
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Current Test ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Average Person ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
Definition Of

This article summarizes the activity of the United States Supreme Court in formulating and applying definitions of what constitutes obscenity. For almost ninety years, American courts applied a test of obscenity established by a British court in 1868. In 1957, after lower courts in the United States had expanded the British definition, the Supreme Court, in Roth v. United States, defined as obscene such material which, "to the average person, apply ing contemporary community standards," appealed to prurient interests and lacked redeeming social value. Between 1957 and 1966, the Court added several dimensions to its definition of obscenity. The current test of obscenity was framed in 1966 in Memoirs v. Massachusetts, which reworded the Roth definition and included a third standard—namely, that the material must also be "patently offensive." This article examines not only the Supreme Court's actual definitions of obscenity but also the trends in these definitions and the Court's continual efforts to define and redefine obscenity.

scholarly journals Trump v. Hawaii

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Spiro
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
Trump Administration

In Trump v. Hawaii, the United States Supreme Court upheld admissions restrictions imposed by the Trump administration on nationals of certain countries for putative security reasons. In so doing, the Court's opinion reaffirmed judicial deference to the president on matters relating to immigration. Although the decision marked a Trump administration victory at the end of a protracted judicial clash, the lower courts are likely to continue operating as a check on aggressively restrictionist policies pursued by the administration on other fronts.

Act of State and Department of State: First National City Bank v. Banco Nacional De Cuba

1972 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 795-814 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas F. Lowenfeld
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
International Law ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Recent Issue ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Formal Communication

No recent issue has so divided lawyers and writers in the field of international law as the question whether courts of one nation should sit in judgment on the acts of other nations with respect to foreign held property—sometimes, always, or never. The United States Supreme Court in Banco Nacional de Cubav. Sabbatinosaid the answer was never—or at least hardly ever—thus upholding and reaffirming the “act of state doctrine”. The Congress in the Hickenlooper (or Sabbatino) Amendmentmade an effort to reverse that ruling, an effort that has proved largely unsuccessful. Now the State Department has taken its turn, arguing in a formal communication to the Supreme Court that when it perceives no objection to adjudication on foreign policy grounds, the courts should judge the validity of the foreign nation's acts under international law standards—at least as to counterclaims.

II. THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT SETTLES THE NE EXEAT CONTROVERSY IN AMERICA: ABBOTT v ABBOTT

2010 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 1158-1167
Author(s):  
James D Garbolino
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
Hague Convention ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Child Abduction ◽  
First Case ◽  
Bundle Of Rights ◽  
Definition Of

In a 6–3 opinion the United States Supreme Court held, in its first case involving the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction2, that a ne exeat3 order confers a right of custody for a left behind parent, entitling that parent to maintain an action under the Convention. The decision reverses a 5th Circuit opinion4 which followed the rationale of CrollvCroll.5Croll held that a parent with visitation rights, coupled with a ne exeat clause, possessed only part of the ‘bundle of rights’6 which comprise ‘rights of custody’, and that such limited rights were insufficient to compel a return remedy under the 1980 Convention. The Supreme Court's decision settles a conflict among the federal circuits on this issue.7 Following the Croll rationale were Fawcett v. McRoberts,8 and Gonzales v Gutierrez.9 The 11th Circuit, however, in Furnes v. Reeves,10 held that a ne exeat provision in a Norwegian custody agreement conferred a right which would satisfy the Convention's definition of ‘custody rights’.

scholarly journals Double Jeopardy and Dual Sovereignty Doctrine: Gamble v. United States

2019 ◽  
pp. 225-242
Author(s):  
Javier Escobar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Double Jeopardy ◽  
The Supreme Court

Abstract: In Gamble v. United States, the defendant questioned the constitutionality of the dual sovereignty doctrine under the double jeopardy clause. In its judgment, delivered on 17 June, 2019, the United States Supreme Court upheld the application of the dual sovereignty doctrine, according to which different sovereigns may prosecute an individual without violating the double jeopardy clause if the individual's act infringed the laws of each sovereignty. This comment aims to address the reasoning of the Supreme Court and the rationale of the dual sovereignty doctrine, suggesting the convenience and necessity of a further study on its limits and the possible safeguards against potential abuses. 

The Supreme Court and the Juvenile Court

1967 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-487
Author(s):  
Noah Weinstein ◽  
Corinne R. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Juvenile Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Exact Effect ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time

For the first time in its 68-year history, the juvenile court has felt the impact of the United States Supreme Court. It would be impossible to predict the exact effect of the decisions, but unquestionably they will be of prime importance in their influ ence on juvenile court procedures.

Six Notions of ‘Political’ and the United States Supreme Court

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hodder-Williams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Political System ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Appellate Court ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court

Six different notions of ‘political’ are commonly used in discussions of the US Supreme Court. All six are familiar, but the distinctions among them are seldom carefully drawn. The six are: (1) purely definitional, in the sense that the Supreme Court, as an appellate court of last resort inevitably authoritatively allocates values; (2) empirical, in the sense that litigants use the Court to try to achieve their political purposes; (3) influence seeking, in the sense that the justices have a natural desire to prevail in arguments within the court; (4) prudential, in the sense that the justices frequently consider the probable consequences of their decisions; (5) policy-oriented, in the – usually pejorative – sense that justices are said to use the Court and the law as a cover for pursuing their own policy and other goals; and (6) systemic, in the sense that the Court's decisions frequently, as a matter of fact, have consequences for other parts of the American political system. These six notions are considered in the context of recent abortion decisions.

The United States Supreme Court and Criminal Cases, 1935–1976: Alternative Models of Agenda Building

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory A. Caldeira
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Agenda Building ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Main Mode ◽  
Temporal Dimension ◽  
The Supreme Court

Perhaps the most important decisions that the United States Supreme Court makes consist of which sorts of issues it will entertain and how, when, and in what forms it will resolve them. Indeed, as Mr Justice Brandeis once remarked, the ‘most important thing [the Court does] is not doing’, i.e. winnowing cases. Yet, until quite recently, few studies focused on the politics of the agenda-building process on the Supreme Court. From the important researches of Tanenhaus and his associates and of Ulmer and his colleagues we know that under certain conditions and in certain cases the justices operate on the basis of a few ‘cues’ in decisions to grant or deny petitions for certiorari – the main mode of obtaining a hearing from the Court. And Ulmer has instructed us that in making choices on certiorari, ‘Supreme Court justices are predisposed to support underdogs and upperdogs disproportionately but, also, are motivated to hide any “bias” that may be at work in determining votes’. So, although we do know more about some segments of agenda building than before, investigations are still at a relatively early stage. Furthermore, few have treated the Supreme Court as an institution that operates across time as well as space or have accounted for variations in its behaviour across that temporal dimension.

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