Roth v. United States

The constitutionality of a criminal obscenity statute is the question in each of these cases. In Roth, the primary constitutional question is whether the federal obscenity statute 1 violates the provision of the First Amendment that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . . .” In Alberts, the primary constitutional question is whether the obscenity provisions of the California Penal Code 2 invade the freedoms of speech and press as they may be incorporated in *480the liberty protected from state action by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth…