Redrup v. New York

Redrup v. New York
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 10–11, 1966 Decided May 8, 1967
Full case name	Robert Redrup, Petitioners v. State of New York; William L. Austin, Petitioner v. State of Kentucky; Gent, et al., Appellants v. State of Arkansas
Citations	386 U.S. 767 (more)
Holding
Written materials that were not sold to minors, or foisted on unwilling audiences were constitutionally protected.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart Byron White · Abe Fortas
Case opinions
Per curiam
Dissent	Harlan, joined by Clark

Redrup v. New York, 386 U.S. 767 (1967) was a May 8, 1967 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States, widely regarded as the end of American censorship of written fiction. Robert Redrup was a Times Square newsstand clerk who sold two of William Hamling's Greenleaf Classics paperback pulp sex novels, Lust Pool and Shame Agent, to a plainclothes police officer. He was tried and convicted in 1965.

With financial backing from Hamling, Redrup appealed his case to the Supreme Court where his conviction was overturned by 7-2. The court's final ruling affirmed that written materials that were neither sold to minors nor foisted on unwilling audiences were constitutionally protected, thereby de facto ending American censorship of written material. After this decision, the Supreme Court systematically and summarily reversed, without further opinion, scores of obscenity rulings involving paperback sex books.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 386
• List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Warren Court
• List of United States Supreme Court cases involving the First Amendment
• Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957)
• Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973)

Further reading

• Hagle, Timothy M. (1991). "But Do They Have to See It to Know It? The Supreme Court's Obscenity and Pornography Decisions". The Western Political Quarterly. 44 (4). University of Utah: 1039–1054. doi:10.2307/448806. JSTOR 448806. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• Kobylka, Joseph F. (1987). "A Court-Created Context for Group Litigation: Libertarian Groups and Obscenity". The Journal of Politics. 49 (4). Cambridge University Press: 1061–1078. doi:10.2307/2130784. JSTOR 2130784. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)