The Specialty Publications

A police officer bought two publications at a man's store, both devoted to sadomasochistic sexual material. The store owner was charged under the state's general obscenity statute. After the purchase, the Supreme Court announced a new obscenity test requiring that the sexual conduct a state bans be specifically defined by its law, as written or as construed by its courts. The prosecution said the publications were plainly obscene. The owner argued that the state statute's text did not list sadomasochistic material, so it failed the new specificity requirement, was unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, and gave him no fair notice that selling these works was a crime.