Rabe v. Washington

Petitioner was the manager of the Park Y Drive-In Theatre in Richland, Washington, where the motion picture Carmen Baby was shown. The motion picture is a loose adaptation of Bizet’s opera Carmen, con*314taining sexually frank scenes but no instances of sexual consummation are explicitly portrayed. After viewing the film from outside the theater fence on two successive evenings, a police officer obtained a warrant and arrested petitioner for violating Washington’s obscenity statute. Wash. Rev. Code § 9.68.010. Petitioner was later convicted and, on appeal, the Supreme Court of Washington…