Decision
The MANual Enterprises Court was significantly divided. Since the 1957 decision in Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957), the Court had struggled to define and refine its approach to obscenity. The widely divergent opinions in MANual Enterprises may reflect those divisions.
The majority opinion was written by Justice John Marshall Harlan II, and joined by Justice Potter Stewart. Justice Hugo Black, who took an absolutist approach to First Amendment jurisprudence, concurred in the result but did not join the opinion. Justice Black did not issue an opinion of his own.
Justice William Brennan, joined by Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice William O. Douglas, concurred but would have decided the case on much narrower technical rather than First Amendment grounds.
Only Justice Tom C. Clark dissented.
Read more about this topic: MANual Enterprises V. Day
Famous quotes containing the word decision:
“Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality,—that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses the available candidate,—who is invariably the devil,—and what right have his constituents to be surprised, because the devil does not behave like an angel of light? What is wanted is men, not of policy, but of probity,—who recognize a higher law than the Constitution, or the decision of the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The issue is privacy. Why is the decision by a woman to sleep with a man she has just met in a bar a private one, and the decision to sleep with the same man for $100 subject to criminal penalties?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern this nation. This difficult effort will be the “moral equivalent of war,” except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)