Citations 386 U.S. 767 (more) | End date 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 Dissent Harlan, joined by Clark People also search for United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film | ||
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.