Abstract
North Carolina, like other states, has chosen to regulate the dissemination of obscenity through a nuisance abatement statute, Chapter 19 of the General Statutes, as well as through criminal prosecution. The Supreme Court of North Carolina answered the question of whether the state's nuisance abatement statute violates the fourteenth amendment's proscription against the unreasonable curtailment of protected expression in State ex rel. Andrews v. Chateau X, Inc., hereinafter Chateau X-I. The Court compared the practical effect of an injunction issued under Chapter 19 with the effect of a criminal statute and found that Chapter 19 was nothing more than a personalized criminal statute. Because the Chapter 19 injunction imposed the same restrictions which could be constitutionally imposed by a criminal proceeding, the injunction did not operate as an unconstitutional prior restraint on protected expression.
Recommended Citation
Robert H. Miller II, Constitutional Law - Control of Obscenity through Enforcement of a Nuisance Statute, 4 Campbell L. Rev. 139 (1981).