The Law: Home Movies

The federal and state agents who entered the Atlanta home of Robert Eli Stanley in 1967 to search for proof of suspected bookmaking failed to unearth any evidence of gambling. But they did find three reels of film that, as they later testified, depicted "successive orgies of seduction, sodomy and sexual intercourse." Stanley was convicted under a Georgia law that forbids possession of obscene material, and sentenced to a year in prison. Last week, in a decision that reversed Stanley's conviction, the Supreme Court ruled that no matter how obscene his movies might have been, he had every right to view...

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