ABSTRACT
Defining obscenity has dominated the US Supreme Court's jurisprudence concerning how it comports with First Amendment rights to freedom of expression. Although some courts adopted the Hicklin test, its influence gave way to a test that judged the effect of obscenity on the "average" person. In fact, as early as 1896 the US Supreme Court in Dunlop v. United States, 165 US 486, approved a jury instruction that required a finding that the alleged obscene expression "must be calculated with the ordinary reader to deprave him, deprave his morals, or lead to impure purposes." Defining the boundary of obscene expression began in earnest in 1957 when the US Supreme Court explicitly rejected the Hicklin test as unconstitutionally restrictive in Roth v. United States, 354 US 476.
