Today in Supreme Court History: January 13

One, Inc. v. Olsesen, 355 U.S. 371 (decided January 13, 1958): Citing its recent analysis in Roth v. United States, Court reverses Circuit Court and vacates obscenity conviction (ironically in Roth the Court had affirmed an obscenity conviction).  The Circuit Court decision, 241 F.2d 772, is quite a jolt, a nuanced essay on the changing definition of obscenity (“morals are not static like the everlasting hills, but are like the vagrant breezes to which the mariner must ever trim his sails”) which turns into a gastrointestinal eruption (the magazine is “obscene and filthy”).  At issue was a magazine called “One” which had fiction, articles and photographs dealing with homosexuality (both sexes).  An article on “One” is at https://daily.jstor.org/one-the-first-gay-magazine-in-the-united-states/

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (decided January 13, 1988): First Amendment does not preclude school board from redacting on privacy grounds pages of high school newspaper on the lives of its pregnant students (even though names were changed) and on inappropriateness grounds mentions of sexual activity and birth control (the board’s action probably resulted in more unwanted pregnancies)

Cochnower v. United States, 248 U.S. 405 (decided January 13, 1919): Secretary of the Treasury had no power to cut customs official’s compensation (from $5 to $4 per diem) because statute empowered him only to “increase and fix” compensation, not reduce it (from the lower court opinion we see that the cut was not punishment but the result of “reorganization and reclassification”)

Babcock v. Kijakazi, 595 U.S. 77 (decided January 13, 2022): years spent by un-uniformed technician in assisting National Guard were not “years in uniformed service” so as to avoid reduction of Social Security benefits under dual-pension “windfall” rule

Chambers v. United States, 555 U.S. 122 (decided January 13, 2009): conviction for failing to report to prison for violent offense was not itself a “violent felony” as an aggravating sentencing factor under the Armed Career Criminal Act (overruled as to the analysis, but not the result, by Johnson v. United States, 2015)