Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Holmby Productions, Inc. v. Vaughn


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep.  Arbitrarily0  ( talk ) 02:33, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Holmby Productions, Inc. v. Vaughn

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

No evidence that demonstrates that this legal case is notable. The two sources are both court transcripts and legal judgments. Nothing to show that the judgement was regarded as notable. Fails WP:GNG  Velella  Velella Talk 20:58, 26 August 2022 (UTC) for these reasons, and probably others, I urge that this article be kept.
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Film and Kansas.  Velella  Velella Talk  20:58, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 21:24, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep and I'll argue my reasons why I posted the article in the first place.
 * 1) It is intended to show one of the pre-Freeman cases (Freedman v. Maryland) where courts upheld censorship and film licensing laws, despite coming after the 1952 Miracle case (Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson) where the Supreme Court recognized that motion pictures are forms of "speech" and are entitled to First Amendment protection.
 * 2) We are not supposed to do "original research" nor state our own opinons, but to show the facts, and the reader make their own judgment.
 * 3) My intent was to show the court's reasoning and why it came to the conclusion it did.
 * 4) I also wanted to show the appeal. The issue here is, the Supreme Court gave no explanation as to why the case was reversed.
 * 5) * Did the court consider the movie was not obscene?
 * 6) * Did the court feel that, yes, a reviewing court must also examine the movie to determine if the judgment of obscenity by the board is correct?
 * 7) * Did the court consider the licensing scheme either partially or wholly invalid?
 * 8) * Was the declaration of the film as "obscene" merely a pretext to ban the film?
 * 9) * Was the definition of "obscene" correct and not overbroad (based on the Supreme Court's decision in Miller v. California, it probably was.)
 * The extremely terse statement tells us nothing.
 * 1) It is meant to show an example where, a lower court could go through a carefully reasoned decision, examine all the relevant decisions, parse them all, and still be told by an apeals court, "Wrong."
 * 2) It was also intended to provide the entire history of this case. On the Internet, it's in two places, as a Kansas State decision and a federal one. (some reporting sites don't even carry the Supreme Court's decision).
 * 3) This case isn't precedential, both because it was overturned, and there is no explanation why, so it has little value in being scholarly examined, but was used in later court cases to show that lower courts do not have much guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court on obscenity.
 * 4) If I should have made these comments to better explain why it was included, I could, but I thought I wasn't supposed to.
 * 5) I think it is a good marker into the past: this is where we were, and how sometimes new media doesn't get recognized as subject to First Amendment protection.
 * 6) Consider now: it is clearly recognized that video games have First Amendment protection and People who film police are allowed to do so.
 * 7) Even back then, no one would have expected books and newspapers to have to have permission to be published, yet motion pictures were not given the same protection.
 * 8) It's clear now, despite the court's decision, requiring someone to submit a film to a government censor before being allowed to publish it, or having to get approval first, was prior restraint.
 * 9) Someone else has updated the article with at least one point I was unaware of.
 * 10) It is something we should be aware of, as part of First Amendment history
 * 11) As to notability, there are more than 1400 hits on Google about this case.

Thank you, Paul Robinson

"Understanding of things by me is only made possible by viewers (of my comments) like you." Thank you. Paul Robinson Rfc1394 (talk) 16:01, 27 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment - I understand and empathise to a degree with your concerns, but these do not and cannot overide Wikipedia's requirement for multiple independednt and reliable sources discussing the subject. I was unable to find such sources but much material from the US is not visible to us in Europe so that I cannot determine whether there are sources for notability out there. Without such sources, the test for notability will fail. The reference to the 1sr amendment is, of course, only relevant to to the US and not Wikipedia. Regards  Velella  Velella Talk 17:47, 27 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep - covered in this book. It is also covered in this encyclopaedia on jurisprudence and trials. Mentioned in this book. This book too. Cited here. This book also. Discussed in the Harvard Law Review - one of the most prestigious and eminent law journals in the world here. It was also cited in |A90190384&v=2.1&it=r&sid=ebsco this research publication. Now, I do not have the time to do a full search right now, but I consider it very likely that the decision has been quoted in other decisions and other scholarly research. There is no specific notability guideline to my knowledge for judicial decisions. So to my understanding, there is sufficient significant coverage in independent secondary sources to meet the general notability guideline. There is scope to expand the article and improve it using the sources I have so far discovered. While some sources out there merely cite the decision rather than discuss it at length, common sense (to lawyers and those familiar with reading court cases) dictates this is so. A mere citation in a scholarly work or future precedent can be considered significant. 03:39, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

It was held unconstitutional... in Holmby Productions, Inc. v. Vaughn, 350 U.S. 870, 76 S. Ct. 117 (1955), a motion picture case. The phrase under attack was "obscene, indecent, or immoral or such as tend to debase or corrupt morals." - Commonwealth v. Blumenstein, 396 Pa. 417 (1959) Since the U.S. Supreme Court does not say what waa reversed, on;y the case as qupted in the article explains that. - MTR. OF KINGSLEY CORP. v. Regents 4 AD 2d 348, 165 NYS 2d 681 - NY: Appellate Div., 3rd Dept., 1957 - United Artists v. BD. OF CENSORS, 124 A. 2d 292, 210 Md. 586 - Md: Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1956 - Google Scholar Thus I thinl these and other decision s citing it show it deserves inclusion. I think I'll add these points to the article. "Understanding of things by me is only made possible by viewers (of my comments) like you." Thank you. Paul Robinson Rfc1394 (talk) 01:39, 31 August 2022 (UTC) Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 21:55, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Amplification of prior comment. Holmby was the recognized case that Kansas' Motion picture licensing law was unconstitutional. 63 other cpurt cases amd legal articles refer to it. Some examples:
 * In a decision of the Supreme Court pf Pennsylvania, of an appeal by a theater manager convicted for showing an 'obscene' film, under a statute which made it a misdemeanor foe "the "exhibition of fixed or moving pictures of a lascivious, sacrilegious, obscene, indecent or immoral nature," that of the words in the statute, all of the words: lascivious, sacrilegious, indecent or immoral were impermissible reasons to ban a film and found unconstitutional in various US Supreme Court decisioms.The Vourt then said, This leaves the single term "obscene" to consider.
 * The U.S. Supreme Court, in Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. Dallas, 390 US 676 (1968) recognied that its decision in Holmby struck down the Kansas syayite as unconstitutionna;.
 * As we interpret the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Burstyn case, the Commercial Pictures case, and Holmby Prods. v. Vaughn (350 U. S. 870), a statute which leaves any field open to the opinion, discretion or individual point of view of a censor in banning a moving picture violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
 * In 1955 the [U.S. Supreme] Court in Holmby Productions, Inc. v. Vaughn, 350 U.S. 870, 76 S.Ct. 117, 193, 100 L.Ed. 73, held that the Kansas statute authorizing the Board of Censors to disapprove of such motion picture films as are "cruel, obscene, indecent, or immoral, or such as tend to debase or corrupt morals," was unconstitutional as applied to that case.
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   08:36, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment All sources used in the article are primary sources. We'd need either a scholarly journal discussing the case or newspaper articles discussing it. Same reason for not using Hansard for example, it's published by those who dictate it. Above discussion appears to be all original research, so we can't really use that either. Oaktree b (talk) 22:06, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Keep - alleges it is a notable precedent. Bearian (talk) 14:32, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Strong keep, state supreme court cases are inherently notable. GregJackP   Boomer!   13:31, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep - This is a state supreme court case that was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, so there is a strong presumption of notability. It has been cited in reliable secondary sources. In addition, there are many newspaper sources from the period that are available through WP:TWL that discuss the case. Although these are not yet in the article, the article is less than a month old. Let’s not be too quick to delete an article that just needs a refimprove tag. John M Baker (talk) 21:14, 17 September 2022 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.