Marcus v. Search Warrant of Property

This appeal presents the question whether due process under the Fourteenth Amendment was denied the appellants by the application in this case of Missouri’s procedures authorizing the search for and seizure of allegedly obscene publications preliminarily to their destruction by burning or otherwise if found by a court to be obscene. The procedures are statutory, but are supplemented by a rule of the Missouri Supreme Court.1 The warrant for search for and seizure of obscene material issues on a sworn complaint filed with a judge or magis*719trate.2 If the complainant states “positively and not…