MASSACHUSETTS v. OAKES

Legal Principle at Issue

Whether a Massachusetts child pornography statute prohibiting adults from posing or exhibiting minors "in a state of nudity" was overbroad and violated the First Amendment.

Action

Vacated and remanded. Petitioning party received a favorable disposition.

Facts/Syllabus

In 1984, respondent Douglas Oakes took approximately 10 color photographs of his partially nude and physically mature 14-year-old stepdaughter, L.S., who at the time was attending modeling school. The photographs depict L.S. sitting, lying, and reclining on top of a bar, clad only in a red and white striped bikini panty and a red scarf. The scarf does not cover L.S.'s breasts, which are fully exposed in all the photographs. 

Oakes was indicted, tried, and convicted of violating a Massachusetts statute prohibiting adults from posing or exhibiting minors "in a state of nudity" for purposes of visual representation or reproduction in any publication, motion picture, photograph, or picture. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reversed the conviction. After holding that Oakes' posing of L.S. was speech for First Amendment purposes, the court struck down the statute as substantially overbroad under the First Amendment without addressing whether the statute could be constitutionally applied to Oakes. It concluded the statute criminalized conduct that virtually every person would regard as lawful, such as the taking of family photographs of nude infants. Subsequently, the statute was amended to add a "lascivious intent" requirement to the "nudity" portion of the statute and to eliminate exemptions contained in the prior version.