Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that helped to establish an implied "right to privacy" in U.S. law in the form of mere possession of obscene materials.

[1] The home of Robert Eli Stanley, a suspected bookmaker, was searched by police with a federal warrant to seize betting paraphernalia.

Prior to the Stanley case, the prevailing precedent was that of Roth v. United States, where obscene material was determined to be unprotected by the First Amendment right to speech.

In Roth, the defendant sent lewd advertisements by mail and sold American Aphrodite, a magazine containing erotica and pornography content.

They reasoned that members of the public, especially impressionable children, should have a valid expectation to not be inadvertently exposed to obscenity.

Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds.

In Winters v. New York, a notion was established that freedom of speech extended to what an individual possesses and chooses to read.

[6] For this reason, the Court dismissed Georgia's argument that drew a line between communication of ideas and "mere entertainment".

The Court reasoned that primary crime deterrents should be education and punitive measures for violation of the law.

The Court did not agree with the validity of this claim, and further asserted that an individual's First Amendment rights were more important in this case.

General searches and seizures were made unconstitutional because of the prevailing policy during colonial rule of colonial courts issuing writs of assistance directing law enforcement officers to search all of a person's belongings to find anything that is incriminating.

The record showed that the officers had to play the films on a projector to determine that they violated the Georgia obscenity statute.

So the films are not admissible as evidence under the plain view doctrine, which requires that the character of the object is "immediately apparent".

The majority opinion defended the free and unimpeded acquisition of facts and knowledge, regardless of their apparent social value.