Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436 (1957), was a Supreme Court case that addressed issues of obscenity, free speech, and due process.

[3] This statute allowed for officials to prevent the distribution of "lewd or obscene materials" although the action taken was actually civil and not criminal.

[3] "A complaint dated September 10, 1954 charged appellants with displaying for sale paper-covered obscene booklets, fourteen of which were annexed under the general title of "Nights of Horror."

[3] The fact that the sheriff was responsible for handling this civil action was partly why the case had issues with due process.

The judge failed to ban distribution of future issues of the series as he found that such an injunction would violate the constitutional protections against free speech, and specifically prior restraint.

Nor can it serve as a talismanic test… Instead of requiring the bookseller to dread that the offer for sale of a book may, without prior warning, subject him to a criminal prosecution with the hazard of imprisonment, the civil procedure assures him that such consequences cannot follow unless he ignores a court order specifically directed to him for a prompt and carefully circumscribed determination of the issue of obscenity.

Nor is it a case ordering the destruction of materials disseminated by a person who has been convicted of an offense for doing so, as would be authorized under provisions in the laws of New York and other States.

It is a case wherein the New York police, under a different state statute, located books which, in their opinion, were unfit for public use because of obscenity and then obtained a court order for their condemnation and destruction.

The outcome of the cases led to a hard line drawn on civil liberties as it pertained to free speech and adult content.

This case did however empower the states to regulate what was and wasn't obscene as long as it was done in a manner that allowed the content to actually be produced and evaluated first.