Here Is Where: Discovering America's Great Forgotten History

by Andrew Carroll

Leading the charge against Jacobellis was the Citizens for Decent Literature, an Ohio-based group founded by Charles H. Keating Jr. (the same Charles Keating caught up in the savings-and-loan scandals three decades later and sentenced to prison by a young Judge Lance Ito—of O. J. Simpson trial fame—for conspiracy, fraud, and racketeering). “By definition ‘obscenity’ appeals to lustful interests and emotions,” Keating stated in his Jacobellis amicus curiae brief. “It does not contain ideas of value. It is not in the competitive market place of ideas. It contributes nothing in the search for truth or the development of civilization.” Jacobellis won, 6–3. “We recognize the legitimate and indeed exigent interest of States and localities throughout the Nation in preventing the dissemination of material deemed harmful to children,” Justice William J. Brennan wrote in the Court’s judgment on June 22, 1964. “But that interest does not justify a total suppression of such material, the effect of which would be to ‘reduce the adult population … to reading only what is fit for children.’ ” Under Roth v. United States, obscenity had been defined as something “utterly without redeeming social importance.” In Jacobellis, Brennan latched onto “utterly” and used the word to make it considerably more difficult to ban any work, asserting that, if the material had even one iota