Mapp v. Ohio · ¶76

The action of the Court finds no support in the rule that decision of Constitutional issues should be avoided wherever possible. For in overruling Wolf the Court, instead of passing upon the validity of Ohio’s § 2905.34, has simply chosen between two Constitutional questions. Moreover, I submit that it has chosen the more difficult and less appropriate of the two questions. The Ohio statute which, as construed by the State Supreme Court, punishes knowing possession or control of obscene material, irrespective of the purposes of such possession or control (with exceptions not here applicable) and irrespective of whether the accused had any reasonable opportunity to rid himself of the material after discovering that it was obscene, surely presents a Constitutional question which is both simpler and less far-reaching than the question which the Court decides today. It seems to me that…

U. S. Reports, bound volume
U. S. Reports, volume 367, at 643 (Library of Congress) · transcription: Caselaw Access Project
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