Ban on obscene phone calls ruled unconstitutional by Georgia Supreme Court

26 Apr 2005, credit to Bill Rankin of the AJC:

The Georgia Supreme Court today ruled unconstitutional a state law that makes it a crime to carry on obscene and indecent conversations over the telephone.

In a unanimous ruling, the court threw out two misdemeanor convictions against Anthony McKenzie, a 17-year-old from Cumming who made a series of collect phone calls in 2003 from the Forsyth County jail to a 14-year-old girl he had recently met over the Internet.

The state law, passed by the General Assembly almost 40 years ago, imposes a ban on obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy and indecent comments, suggestions and proposals made during telephone conversations.

In striking down the statute, the state Supreme Court called the law "an overbroad infringement on the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech." The law fails to use the least restrictive means of curtailing such a right, the court said.

"Instead of applying only to obscene speech, it applies to speech that is merely indecent," Justice Robert Benham wrote for the court. "Instead of making illegal such speech only when directed at minors, it makes such speech illegal when heard by adults."

The law can be applied to speech that is unwelcome to the person on the other end of the phone line and can also be applied "to speech welcomed by the listener and spoken with intent to amuse," Benham wrote.