1 Md. App. 139 - Levin v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1967
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently January 1987 · most notably Huffman v. United States (1971), Luros v. United States (1968)
8 federal appellate · 23 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Roth v. United States · Jacobellis v. Ohio · Book Named 'John Cleland's Memoirs of Woman of Pleasure' v. Attorney General of Commonwealth of Massachusetts · Ginzburg v. United States · Sanza v. Maryland State Board of Censors
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“which “focuses predominately upon what is sexually morbid, grossly perverse and bizarre without any artistic or scientific purpose or justification.” There is no desire to portray [it] in pseudo-scientific or “arty” terms. It can be recognized by the insult it offers, invariably, to sex and to the human spirit. It goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor and deviates from society’s standards of decency in the representation of the matters in which it deals. It has a patent absence of any redeeming social value; it speaks for itself and screams for all to hear that it is obscene. It is not designed to be a truthful description of the basic realities of life as the individual experiences them but its main purpose [is] to stimulate erotic response. * * * No proof, other than the viewing of it, is required to determine if it is, in fact, obscene. 10”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““ [T] he term ‘obscene’ is ‘not susceptible of definition, anymore than is the loftier concept of due process of law, but it is an inherent part of our system of constitutional government that broad concepts take on definite meaning only as the ground covered by the concept is marked out case by case.’ It is true that the term ‘obscene’ is not precise, but lack of precision is not of itself offensive to the requirements of due process. The Constitution does not require impossible standards. All that is required is that the language conveys sufficiently definite warning as to the proscribed conduct when measured by common understanding and practices.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.