Smith v. California

Smith v. California
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 20, 1959 Decided December 14, 1959
Full case name	Eleazar Smith, et al. v. State of California
Citations	361 U.S. 147 (more) 80 S. Ct. 215; 4 L. Ed. 2d 205
Case history
Prior	Defendant found criminally liable for possessing obscene books, violating city ordinance
Holding
Ordinance violated Due Process Clause of Fourteenth Amendment because it did not contain any element of the scienter
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · Felix Frankfurter William O. Douglas · Tom C. Clark John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan Jr. Charles E. Whittaker · Potter Stewart
Case opinions
Majority	Brennan
Concurrence	Black
Concurrence	Frankfurter
Concurrence	Douglas
Dissent	Harlan
Laws applied
U.S. Const. Amend. XIV

Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147 (1959), was a U.S. Supreme Court case upholding the freedom of the press. The decision deemed unconstitutional a city ordinance that made one in possession of obscene books criminally liable because it did not require proof that one had knowledge of the book's content, and thus violated the freedom of the press guaranteed in the First Amendment.^[1] Smith v. California continued the Supreme Court precedent of ruling that questions of freedom of expression were protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by state action. It also established that in order for one to be criminally liable for possession of obscene material, there must be proof of one's knowledge of the material.^[2] It described that by requiring booksellers to know the contents of all of the books that they sell, this would lead to the government compelling booksellers to self-censor thereby restricting the public's access to books which the State could not constitutionally suppress directly.^[3]