<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Superseded by </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973) </Td> </Tr> <P> Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957), along with its companion case Alberts v. Christopher Sommer, was a landmark case before the United States Supreme Court which redefined the Constitutional test for determining what constitutes obscene material unprotected by the First Amendment . </P> <P> Under the common law rule that prevailed before Roth, articulated most famously in the 1868 English case Regina v. Hicklin, any material that tended to "deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences" was deemed "obscene" and could be banned on that basis . Thus, works by Balzac, Flaubert, James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence were banned based on isolated passages and the effect they might have on children . </P>

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