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The Miller test is the United States Supreme Court's test for determining whether speech or expression can be labeled obscene, in which case it is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and can be prohibited.
The Miller test was developed in the 1973 case Miller v. California. It has three parts:
- Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
- Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law,
- Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.
The third condition is also known as the (S)LAPS test ((Serious) Literary, Artistic, Political, Scientific). The work is considered obscene only if all three conditions are satisfied.
For legal scholars, several issues are important. One is that the test allows for community standards rather than a national standard. What offends the average person in Mobile, Alabama, may differ from what offends the average person in New York City. The relevant community, however, is not defined. (read more . . . )
