Everett T. Moore - Moore Vs. Younger, 54 Cal. App. 3D 1122 (1976)

Moore Vs. Younger, 54 Cal. App. 3d 1122 (1976)

The case of Moore vs. Younger originated from a somewhat ambiguous law, California's Harmful Matter Statute. California Attorney General Evelle J. Younger "claimed that individual librarians could be prosecuted for giving juveniles access to questionable reading materials." Moore, as plaintiff, challenged the Attorney General through legal action. In February 1976, one month after he retired from UCLA, Moore won his case. All librarians in California were found to be exempt from the Harmful Matter Statute by the California Court of Appeals.

The court declares that it was the intention of the Legislature to provide librarians with exemption from application of the Harmful Matter Statute when acting in the discharge of their duties. The court declares alternatively that the availability and distribution of books at public and school libraries is necessarily always in furtherance of legitimate educational and scientific purposes.... And accordingly, librarians are not subject to prosecution under the Harmful Matter Statute for distributing library materials to minors in the course and scope of their duties as librarians.

Moore vs. Younger is still relevant today and was cited in 2001 in Kathleen R. vs. City of Livermore, 87 Cal. App. 4th 684 (Cal. App. 1st Dist. 2001). The case involved children and Internet instruction. The library stated, "We cannot presume that such instruction would include lessons on finding obscenity or other harmful matter on the Internet…such lessons would not further the library's stated mission."

Censorship is often a gray area and some lawyers have noted that in the United States it may not be possible to uphold certain laws, "without doing violence to due process of law and to the free-press provisions of the Constitution.