Redd v. State of Georgia
Redd v. State of Georgia is a significant legal case from 1895 that addresses the interpretation of public indecency under Georgia's penal code. The case arose when plaintiffs were convicted for deliberately showing a bull and cow mating in an open field, which they argued did not constitute public indecency as defined by law. The court rejected this argument, stating that public indecency includes any conduct that could undermine public morals, not just indecent exposure of the human body. This ruling expanded the legal definition of public indecency beyond previous interpretations, emphasizing that the context, time, place, and intent behind actions must be considered. The court established that acts deemed indecent must resonate with societal norms and be recognizable by the general public as such. Ultimately, the ruling reinforced the notion that individual behavior is subject to public scrutiny and standards of decency. Redd v. State of Georgia illustrates the dynamic relationship between law, social norms, and moral conduct in society.
Redd v. State of Georgia
Court: Georgia court of appeals
Date: April 6, 1910
Significance: The Georgia court’s decision expanded the definition of public indecency, affirming the right of the state to regulate individual behaviors that society deems indecent
The state of Georgia’s 1895 penal code dictated that acts of public indecency were punishable as criminal misdemeanors. The plaintiffs in Redd v. State of Georgia had been convicted of public indecency for having deliberately displayed to a woman and her children a view of a bull and a cow copulating in an open field. The plaintiffs argued that their actions did not fall within the legal definition of public indecency, which, they asserted, “relates only to indecent exposure of the human person.” Rejecting this interpretation, the court ruled that public indecency encompassed “all notorious public and indecent conduct, tending to debauch the public morals.”
The court’s interpretation was supported by an earlier decision in McJunkins v. State. Quoting from McJunkins, the court held that the term “public indecency” had no fixed legal meaning, that it was “vague and indefinite” and could not in itself imply a definite offense. The court’s acceptance of this view, coupled with its refusal to limit acts of public indecency to those outlined in McJunkins—the inappropriate display of the human body or the production and distribution of obscene materials—allowed it to expand the legal definition of public indecency. The court ruled that the state’s statute was “broad enough to cover all notorious public and indecent conduct, tending to debauch the public morals, even though it be unattended by an exposure of the human body.”
Having expanded the legal definition of public indecency, the court went on to state that acts by themselves could not be considered indecent, unless “the time, the place, the circumstances, and the motives of the actors [are] considered.” Accordingly, certain acts might be deemed decent in certain contexts and indecent in others. The court ruled that “a fair test to determine whether an act is notoriously indecent . . . is to consider whether the general run of the citizenry . . . would readily recognize it as such (all the attendant facts and circumstances and the motives of the actor being considered).”
Redd determined that individual behavior and the right to free expression were governed by contemporary social norms of decency. It supported assertions that individual behavior is open to public censure when its runs contrary to society’s norms. Thus, the court classified the plaintiffs’ behavior as indecent and open to censure because their deliberateness in displaying animal copulation to other people ran contrary to society’s norms of decency at that time.