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Full-Text Articles in Law
Exploring The First Amendment Rights Of Teens In Relationship To Sexting And Censorship, Julia Halloran Mclaughlin
Exploring The First Amendment Rights Of Teens In Relationship To Sexting And Censorship, Julia Halloran Mclaughlin
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article explores child pornography law in relation to teen sexting conduct. Recently, some teens who engaged in teen sexting have been convicted under child pornography laws and have been required to register as sexual predators. The criminalization of teens for developmentally typical behavior, mimicking the conduct of adults, can result in grave harm to most teens. Furthermore, the application of child pornography laws to teen sexting conduct demonstrates the constitutional overbreadth of the current definition of child pornography. Photographs have an emblematic role in society-capturing and celebrating youth. Moreover, the creation of teen sexting images accompanies a teen's developmental …
Taking Safety Seriously: Using Liberalism To Fight Pornography, John M. Kang
Taking Safety Seriously: Using Liberalism To Fight Pornography, John M. Kang
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Liberalism, as a jurisprudential principle, need not be pornography's indifferent observer or spineless sycophant; liberalism can be used to fight pornography. In this Article, the author proposes to illuminate what appears to be the most essential aspect of liberalism in its inviolable dedication to peace and safety. By drawing upon the work of the early liberals, the author argues that liberalism's most basic ethos is conceptually incompatible with pornography, as the latter celebrates an unjustified form of violence as its own end.
Ifeminism, Ashlie Warnick
Ifeminism, Ashlie Warnick
Michigan Law Review
Laws should be judged not by their words or intentions, but by their effects and consequences. When government enacts laws designed to benefit one group, society should judge those laws first by examining whether they have, in practice, provided a net benefit to the law's intended beneficiaries. Next, any such benefit must be weighed against the costs imposed on the rest of society. If the benefits outweigh the costs, this is a socially efficient law. Government should repeal a law when the costs it imposes outweigh its benefits. When laws do not provide a net benefit to the group they …
The Lessons Of Miller And Hudnut: On Proposing A Pornography Ordinance That Passes Constitutional Muster, Martin Karo, Marcia Mcbrian
The Lessons Of Miller And Hudnut: On Proposing A Pornography Ordinance That Passes Constitutional Muster, Martin Karo, Marcia Mcbrian
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note first reviews the evolution of obscenity law, concentrating on the modern obscenity test formulated in Miller v. California, including its requirement that any obscenity prosecution must be based on a state statute, not merely on the common law. It then examines the elements of the Miller test, arguing that legislatures may determine statewide "community standards" of patently offensive depictions of sexual conduct and discusses the permissibility of legislative expansion of pornography regulation beyond the present boundaries. Part II examines the federal courts' analysis of the civil rights-based antipornography ordinance passed in Indianapolis. Part III suggests standards for …
The Apologetics Of Suppression: The Regulation Of Pornography As Act And Idea, Steven G. Gey
The Apologetics Of Suppression: The Regulation Of Pornography As Act And Idea, Steven G. Gey
Michigan Law Review
The first three parts of this article discuss in detail the relationship between the Supreme Court's obscenity rulings and the academic theories that have been offered to bolster the conclusions reached by the Court in this area. Part IV of the article considers a contrary theory of free expression that requires constitutional protection for the dissemination and possession of pornography. In this section I argue that the present efforts to ban pornography are directly linked to a tolerance model of free expression. The tolerance model, which is usually contrasted with an analytical approach characterized by Holmesian skepticism, necessarily relies upon …
Brief Amici Curiae Of Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce, Et Al., In American Booksellers Association V. Hudnut, Nan D. Hunter, Sylvia A. Law
Brief Amici Curiae Of Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce, Et Al., In American Booksellers Association V. Hudnut, Nan D. Hunter, Sylvia A. Law
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The document that follows represents both a legal brief and a political statement. It was written for two purposes: to mobilize, in a highly visible way, a broad spectrum of feminist opposition to the enactment of laws expanding state suppression of sexually explicit material; and to place before the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit a cogent legal argument for the constitutional invalidity of an Indianapolis municipal ordinance that would have permitted private civil suits to ban such material, purportedly to protect women. Drafting this brief was one of the most demanding and exhilarating assignments either author has yet …
Introduction, Lillian R. Bevier
Introduction, Lillian R. Bevier
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Articles in this Symposium vividly demonstrate that the reason that the pornography debate is no longer at the forefront of national consciousness is surely not that the phenomenon itself has disappeared. Nor is it that we have achieved anything approaching consensus, for we cannot seem to agree even about what pornography is, much less about its harms or benefits. Nor is it even that we have suddenly discovered and begun to deploy, from tools long available in our legal arsenal, enforcement strategies promising cures less harmful than the disease. Quite the . contrary. As the editors of this journal …
Hard-Core Pornography: A Proposal For A Per Se Rule, Bruce A. Taylor
Hard-Core Pornography: A Proposal For A Per Se Rule, Bruce A. Taylor
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Part I of this Article discusses the history and pervasiveness of the pornography problem. Part II explains the current legal test for obscenity, as evolved from Miller v. California, with an emphasis on terms commonly used in the definition of obscenity. Part III examines the problems in applying Miller that suggest that the application of a per se hard-core pornography rule may be appropriate. Finally, Part IV presents a proposal for a per se hard-core pornography rule, similar to child pornography laws existing in many jurisdictions and upheld by the Supreme Court in New York v. Ferber. This Article concludes …
The Right To Speak, The Right To Hear, And The Right Not To Hear: The Technological Resolution To The Cable/Pornography Debate, Michael I. Meyerson
The Right To Speak, The Right To Hear, And The Right Not To Hear: The Technological Resolution To The Cable/Pornography Debate, Michael I. Meyerson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article concludes that the power of government to regulate cable pornography is limited to that which is legally obscene. Part I reviews Supreme Court cases delineating the relationship between the rights of privacy in the home and of freedom of speech. Part II demonstrates that the technology of cable television provides the solution to the pornography dilemma. Cable television preserves both privacy and speech interests because individual subscribers can be given the physical means to block out programming they find personally offensive without affecting the ability of others to receive that programming. Where such accommodation of interests is permissible, …
Pornography And Obscenity Sold In "Adult Bookstores": A Survey Of 5132 Books, Magazines, And Films In Four American Cities, Park Elliott Dietz, Alan E. Sears
Pornography And Obscenity Sold In "Adult Bookstores": A Survey Of 5132 Books, Magazines, And Films In Four American Cities, Park Elliott Dietz, Alan E. Sears
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
During the eighteen months that the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography (the Commission) conducted public hearings, public discussion, and staff research, one of the most common types of inquiry directed to the staff consisted of questions as to the content of pornography currently available in the United States. Critics of the Commission's work asserted that the pornography used as exhibits by witnesses at the public hearings was extreme, not commonly available, or unrepresentative of that sold in pornography retail outlets; The only pertinent, quantitative data available to the Commission appeared in a single report in the American Journal of Psychiatry …
Prurient Interest And Human Dignity: Pornography Regulation In West Germany And The United States, Mathias Reimann
Prurient Interest And Human Dignity: Pornography Regulation In West Germany And The United States, Mathias Reimann
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article examines the regulation of pornography in West Germany and compares it to regulation in the United States. Part I provides an overview of the legal framework- constitutional and statutory-of pornography regulation in West Germany. Part II then traces the evolution of the concept of human dignity as a standard for defining pornography in West Germany, and Part III illustrates the practical impact of the idea in two widely debated recent cases. Part IV argues that West Germany's human dignity approach to pornography regulation raises important questions about how to view pornography, but that cultural and constitutional differences between …
Restricting Adult Access To Material Obscene As To Juveniles, Ann H. Coulter
Restricting Adult Access To Material Obscene As To Juveniles, Ann H. Coulter
Michigan Law Review
This Note considers whether state regulations that restrict juvenile access to material that is obscene as to minors unconstitutionally encroach upon the first amendment rights of adults. Part I briefly describes the Court's opinion in Ginsberg. Part II introduces the "O'Brien analysis" and discusses the aspects of juvenile access restrictions that tend to make O'Brien scrutiny applicable. In this context the frequently relaxed judicial review of governmental restrictions on sexually related material will be discussed. Having concluded that the O'Brien analysis is applicable to access restrictions, Part III applies the test and ultimately concludes that juvenile access restrictions survive …
St. John-Stevas: Obscenity And The Law, William B. Lockhart
St. John-Stevas: Obscenity And The Law, William B. Lockhart
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Obscenity and the Law . By Norman St. John-Stevas