Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

requires. However,Hamling v. United States (1974)

found that expert testimony was not needed if the jury

could view the material themselves. More important,

the court determined that the defendant does not have

the right to produce a poll. Generally, the current trend

is to allow polls as long as they are well conducted

and not biased.

Psychological research has investigated various

aspects of community standards. Research has deter-

mined that community standards may vary over time;

they may be restrictive at one time while lenient at

another. Additionally, research has discovered that

urban communities often have less conservative views

of obscenity than less populated areas.

Males, younger individuals, and Whites are less

likely to consider a material obscene than their coun-

terparts. Furthermore, research has determined that

viewing obscene materials does not change an indi-

vidual’s opinion of whether it is obscene or not, but it

may make individuals less likely to consider that the

material appeals to a prurient interest in sex.

Finally, individuals’ perceptions of obscenity do

not match their perceptions of the community’s stan-

dards of obscenity. That is, individuals indicate that

their personal views are more lenient than those of the

community, even though they are part of the commu-

nity. This may be problematic in court if individuals

believe that their views do not match their commu-

nity’s view; they may determine that a material is

obscene by community standards when they person-

ally do not believe it is. Jury members are supposed to

overlook their own standards and apply community

standards in these cases. Yet if they do not have infor-

mation about community standards, they may be

inclined to believe that the community is much more

restrictive than it truly is. As such, expert testimony

from researchers who have polled the community can

provide jurors with insight into what the community

truly believes to be obscene.

Obscenity and the Internet

The most current challenge to the obscenity laws con-

cerns sexual material posted on the Internet, which did

not exist when the obscenity definition was estab-

lished in 1973. Jurisdictional issues become problem-

atic when obscenity cases involve the Internet.

Although the material may not be viewed as obscene

in the community of the individual who placed it on

the Web site, it may be obscene in other communities

where it is viewed. Courts have determined that the

individual responsible for the obscene material will

not be held to the standards of the town where he or

she posted the Web site (Voyeur Dorm, L.C. v. City of

Tampa,2001). Instead, he will be held to the standards

of the community where the material is delivered

(Miller v. California, 1973). This decision was fur-

thered by Ashcroft v. ACLU(2002), which established

that Internet material can be judged by the standard of

the community that is most likely to be offended by it.

As these examples demonstrate, obscenity laws pose

difficulties for both lawmakers and psychologists.

Alicia Summers and Monica K. Miller

See alsoExpert Psychological Testimony; Public Opinion

About Crime

Further Readings

Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564 (2002).

Commonwealth v. Trainor, 374 Mass. 796, 801–802 (1978).

Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87 (1974).

Kaplan v. California, 413 U.S. 115 (1973).

Miller v. California, 93 S. Ct. 2607 (1973).

People v. Nelson, 88 Ill. App.3d 196 (1980).

Pinkus v. United States, 436 U.S. 293 (1978).

Reese, D. A., & Kyle, D. A. (2002). Obscenity and

pornography. Journal of Gender and the Law, 4(1),

137–168.

Scott, J. E. (1991). What is obscene? Social science and the

contemporary community standard test of obscenity.

International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 14(1–2),

29–45.

Smith v. United States, 431 U.S. 291 (1977).

Voyeur Dorm, L.C. v. City of Tampa, 265 F.3d 1232 (11th Cir.

2001).

Ward v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 767 (1977).

OPTIMALITYHYPOTHESIS IN

EYEWITNESSIDENTIFICATION

As originally proposed by Kenneth Deffenbacher, the

optimality hypothesis states that the likelihood of

obtaining statistically reliable positive correlations of

witness confidence and accuracy varies directly with

the degree of optimality of information-processing con-

ditions present for the witness at stimulus encoding,

530 ———Optimality Hypothesis in Eyewitness Identification

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