It was the failure to put this 'aversive' defence to the jury with any clarity which resulted in the notorious quashing of two obscenity convictions during the 1960s.

In 1964, he and two colleagues represented Lenny Bruce before the Illinois Supreme Court, winning an acquittal for the comedian on an earlier obscenity conviction.

Despite this huge shift in how the court is suggesting obscenity should be judged, the obscenity conviction in this case was confirmed.

The charge was based on past obscenity convictions and on the allegation that obscene material was currently available for sale.

For the impending Florida trials, a stricter legal standard for obscenity convictions must be proved - "beyond a reasonable doubt" rather than "a preponderance of the evidence."

The authors discovered, to their surprise, that the obscenity conviction still stood.

(The Week in Review, Jan. 19), on the difficulty of obtaining obscenity convictions, is all too accurate.

She also realized that in many areas community standards had changed and "obscenity" convictions were becoming more difficult to sustain.

Macfadden at the time (1910) was under a suspended jail sentence for an obscenity conviction related to a beauty contest.

Lawyers said the case was the first in which recorded music was the basis for an obscenity conviction in the United States.