Samuel Roth (“the Prometheus of the Unprintable”) is Convicted
Samuel Roth, an independent publisher who specialized in erotica and had many run-ins with the law, was arrested on this day for distributing obscene materials. The appeal of his conviction resulted in the landmark Supreme Court decision, Roth v. United States, on June 24, 1957, which was the first time the court addressed the question of whether the First Amendment protected sexually explicit materials.
Roth had a long career as a publisher who specialized in erotica and unauthorized publications of copyrighted works. He was arrested on several occasions and served several prison terms. In the 1920s he became a pariah in literary circles for publishing an illegal bootleg version of James Joyce’s Ulysses.
In the Roth decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did not protect sexually explicit materials. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan attempted to define obscenity, but his opinion contained many ambiguities that free speech lawyers saw as opportunities to protect the boundaries of freedom of expression. Subsequent court decisions on obscenity and pornography all involve the application or revision of Roth. By the end of the 1960s protection for sexually explicit materials, including films, was greatly expanded.
Read the Roth decision: http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/354/476/case.html
Read about the notorious publisher: Jay A. Gertzman, Samuel Roth: Infamous Modernist (2015)
Learn more about the important Roth case: Whitney Strub, Obscenity Rules: Roth v. United States and the Long Struggle Over Sexual Expression (2013)
Learn more about Samuel Roth’s incredible history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Roth