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Case Study: Miller V. California

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Miller v. California was one of the first attempts to define what would constitute as obscene matter in the eyes of the law. The prosecution came about because Miller started a mail campaign to advertise the sale of adult material. Some of the recipients found the material offensive and alerted the local police. This distribution was found in violation of a California act prohibiting the distribution of obscene material. The court case decided that obscene materials did not fall under the protection of the First Amendment in a 5-to-4 decision. Miller v. California also lead to the modification of both Roth v. United States and Memoirs v. Massachusetts, which was a case that had originally set the tests for obscenity. This case set the standards

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