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Controlling Obscenity By Criminal Sanction, Joseph Weiler

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Consideration of both rationale and process suggest that the criminal sanction, society's ultimate threat, inflicting as it does a unique combination of stigma and loss of liberty, should be resorted to only sparingly in a society that regards itself as free and open.' The sanction is at once uniquely coercive and, in the broadest sense, uniquely expensive. It should be reserved for what really matters. It is the thesis of this paper that this advice as to the proper criterion of forbiddenness has not been followed in the area of obscenity law. The purpose of this paper is to explore …