Rabe v. Washington
| Rabe v. Washington | |
|---|---|
| Argued February 29, 1972 Decided March 20, 1972 | |
| Full case name | William Rabe v. State of Washington |
| Citations | 405 U.S. 313 (more) 92 S. Ct. 993; 31 L. Ed. 2d 258 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | State v. Rabe, 79 Wash. 2d 254, 484 P.2d 917 (Wash. 1971). |
| Holding | |
| A state may not criminally punish a drive-in theater manager for violating an obscenity law if the statute has not given fair notice that the location of the theater was an element of the offense. | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Per curiam | |
| Concurrence | Burger, joined by Rehnquist |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amends. I, VI, XIV | |
Rabe v. Washington, 405 U.S. 313 (1972), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving the application of obscenity laws and criminal procedure to the states. On 29 August 1968, William Rabe, the manager of a drive-in movie theater in Richland, Washington, was arrested on obscenity charges for showing the film Carmen, Baby. Due to First Amendment concerns, the local court convicted Rabe not on the basis that the film as a whole was obscene, but that exhibiting it in a drive-in theater was. The Supreme Court reversed the conviction holding that the citizens of Washington had no notice under the Sixth Amendment that the place where a film was shown was an element of the offense.