Kois v. Wisconsin - 408 U.S. 229 (1972)

U.S. Supreme Court

Kois v. Wisconsin, 408 U.S. 229 (1972)

Kois v. Wisconsin

No. 71-5625

Decided June 26, 1972

408 U.S. 229

Syllabus

Petitioner was convicted under an obscenity statute for publishing in his underground newspaper pictures of nudes and a sex poem. The State Supreme Court upheld the conviction as not violative of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Held: In the context in which they appeared, the photographs were rationally related to a news article, in conjunction with which they appeared, and were entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection. In view of the poem's content and placement with other poems inside the newspaper, its dominant theme cannot be said to appeal to prurient interest. Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476.

Certiorari granted; 51 Wis.2d 668, 188 N.W.2d 467, reversed.