ABSTRACT
In American Booksellers Association, Inc. v. Hudnut, 771 F.2d 323 (7th Cir. 1985), a federal appeals court invalidated an Indianapolis antipornography ordinance. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that obscenity is a category of expression not protected by the First Amendment. To determine if a pornographic work is obscene, courts have used guidelines articulated by the Supreme Court in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973): (1) whether the "average person applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (2) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. If a pornographic work is not obscene, it is protected speech.
