Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court modifying its definition of obscenity from that of "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". It is now referred to as the three-prong standard or the Miller test.
Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413 (1966), was the United States Supreme Court decision that attempted to clarify a holding regarding obscenity made a decade earlier in Roth v. United States (1957).
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957), along with its companion case Alberts v. California, was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which redefined the constitutional test for determining what constitutes obscene material unprotected by the First Amendment. The Court, in an opinion by Justice William J. Brennan Jr. created a test to determine what constituted obscene material: Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the material appeals to a prurient interest in sex, and whether the material was utterly without redeeming social value. Although the Court upheld Roth’s conviction and allowed some obscenity prosecutions, it drastically loosened obscenity laws. The decision dissatisfied both social conservatives who thought that it had gone too far in tolerating sexual imagery, and liberals who felt that it infringed on the rights of consenting adults.
Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964), was a United States Supreme Court decision handed down in 1964 involving whether the state of Ohio could, consistent with the First Amendment, ban the showing of the Louis Malle film The Lovers, which the state had deemed obscene.
Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court enunciated a rule of civil procedure that would eventually become known as the Rooker-Feldman doctrine (also named for the later case of District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462. The doctrine holds that lower United States federal courts may not sit in direct review of state court decisions.
The United States Reports are the official record of the Supreme Court of the United States. They include rulings, orders, case tables, in alphabetical order both by the name of the petitioner and by the name of the respondent, and other proceedings. United States Reports, once printed and bound, are the final version of court opinions and cannot be changed. Opinions of the court in each case are prepended with a headnote prepared by the Reporter of Decisions, and any concurring or dissenting opinions are published sequentially. The Court's Publication Office oversees the binding and publication of the volumes of United States Reports, although the actual printing, binding, and publication are performed by private firms under contract with the United States Government Publishing Office.
United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629 (1883), or the Ku Klux Kase, was a case in which the US Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional for the federal government to penalize crimes such as assault and murder in most circumstances. The Court declared that only state governments have the power to penalize those crimes.
Redrup v. New York, 386 U.S. 767 (1967), was a May 8, 1967 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States, widely regarded as the end of American censorship of written fiction. Robert Redrup was a Times Square newsstand clerk who sold two of William Hamling's Greenleaf Classics paperback pulp sex novels, Lust Pool and Shame Agent, to a plainclothes police officer. He was tried and convicted in 1965.
Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49 (1973), was a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a state court's injunction against the showing of obscene films in a movie theatre restricted to consenting adults. The Court distinguished the case from Stanley v. Georgia, saying that the privacy of the home that was controlling in Stanley was not present in the commercial exhibition of obscene movies in a theatre.
Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U.S. 322 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court decision, which held that the United States Congress may enact legislation governing wildlife on federal lands.
Jenkins v. Georgia, 418 U.S. 153 (1974), was a United States Supreme Court case overturning a Georgia Supreme Court ruling regarding the depiction of sexual conduct in the film Carnal Knowledge.
Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266 (1973), was a United States Supreme Court case holding that the search of an automobile by the United States Border Patrol without a warrant or probable cause violates the Fourth Amendment. The vehicle was stopped and searched for illegal aliens twenty-five miles (40 km) from the Mexican border. The Court approached the search from four views: automobile search, administrative inspection, heavily regulated industry inspection, and border search. As to the validity of the search under the automobile exception, the Court found no justification for the search under the Carroll doctrine because there was no probable cause. As to the validity of the search under various administrative inspection doctrines, the Court found that the officers lacked an area warrant. As to the validity of the heavily regulated industry inspection, the Court found that the doctrine is not applicable to traveling on a state highway. As to the validity of a border search, the Court found that the site of the stop and the entirety of the road on which the stop occurred was too far from the border to be considered a border search.
United States Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548 (1973), is a ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Hatch Act of 1939 does not violate the First Amendment, and its implementing regulations are not unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.
United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S. 123 (1973), was an in rem case decided by the United States Supreme Court that considered the question of whether the First Amendment required that citizens be allowed to import obscene material for their personal and private use at home, which was already held to be protected several years earlier. By a 5–4 margin, the Court held that it did not.