Portal:Supreme Court of the United States

“ On the other hand, the District Court may have reasoned that while Luros had no right to import the photographs for distribution, a person would have a right under Stanley to import them for his own private use and that § 1305 (a) was therefore void as overbroad because it prohibits both sorts of importation. If this was the court's reasoning, the proper approach, however, was not to invalidate the section in its entirety, but to construe it narrowly and hold it valid in its application to Luros. ”

“ Customs officers characteristically inspect luggage and their power to do so is not questioned in this case; it is an old practice and is intimately associated with excluding illegal articles from the country. Whatever the scope of the right to receive obscenity adumbrated in Stanley, that right, as we said in Reidel, does not extent to one who is seeking, as was Luros here to distribute obscene materials to the public, nor does it extend to one seeking to import obscene materials from abroad, whether for private use or public distribution. ”

“ No seizure or forfeiture will be invalidated for delay, however, where the claimant is responsible for extending either administrative action or judicial determination beyond the allowable time limits or where administrative or judicial proceedings are postponed pending the consideration of constitutional issues appropriate only for a three-judge court. ”

“ We note, furthermore, that constitutionally permissible limits may vary in different contexts; in other contexts, such as a claim by a state censor that a movie is obscene, the Constitution may impose different requirements with respect to the time between the making of the claim and the institution of judicial proceedings or between their commencement and completion than in the context of a claim of obscenity made by customs officials at the border. ”

“ It is true that we noted in Blount that 'it is for Congress, not this Court, to rewrite the statute,' 400 U.S., at 419, 91 S.Ct., at 429, and that we similarly refused to rewrite Maryland's statute and Chicago's ordinance in Freedman and Teitel. On the other hand, we must remember that, ' (w) hen the validity of an act of the Congress is drawn in question, and * * * a serious doubt of constitutionality is raised, it is a cardinal principle that this Court will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided.' Crowell v. ”

“ Senator Wheeler likewise could not 'conceive how any man' could 'possibly object' to an amendment to the proposed legislation that required a customs officer, if he concluded material was obscene, to 'tur (n) it over to the district attorney, and the district attorney prosecutes the man, and he has the right of trial by jury in that case.' 71 Cong.Rec. ”