United States v. Shirley Anne Danley, AKA Ginger Cardwell, and Terry Lee Meidel, United States of America v. Roy Earl Oswalt, AKA Jimmy Collins

Defendants were charged with violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1462 and 1465 relating to obscenity, and with conspiracy to violate those sections. They were tried by the court and found guilty. The facts were stipulated, reserving only the question of whether the materials described in the indictment were obscene.

The trial court expressly found that the materials were obscene under the rule of Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 , 93 S.Ct. 2607 , 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973), and even under the stricter rule announced by the plurality in Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413 , 86 S.Ct. 975 , 16 L.Ed.2d 1 (1966). The questions presented by the appeal are whether, in view of the state of Oregon law at the time of the offenses it was permissible for the court to find that the material affronted contemporary community standards and whether the fines levied were excessive.

The then Oregon law did forbid the furnishing, sending, or displaying of obscene materials to minors and did forbid the use of nudity or sex in advertising (Oregon Laws ch. 743, §§ 255-262a (1971)), but did not forbid the sale and distribution of obscene materials to adults. Defendants urge that these laws fixed the…