Also known as: lewd and lascivious conduct · lewd · lascivious
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Conduct or material that is sexually indecent or offensive to common standards of decency.
Landon Long and thirty guests gathered in a boarded-up townhouse owned by Capital Row Investments. Officers found the interior nearly empty, smelled marijuana, and saw guests engaging in lewd conduct. The officers arrested the group for unlawful entry after concluding the gathering lacked authorization.
Leonard Lowe published a weekly periodical containing repeated accounts of lewd and lascivious conduct. State officials obtained an injunction treating the periodical as a public nuisance. The court reviewed whether the injunction violated protections against prior restraint on publication.
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Liam Larson mailed unsolicited advertising brochures that depicted sexual conduct in a patently offensive manner. Prosecutors charged him under state obscenity law. The jury applied community standards to determine whether the materials qualified as lewd and lascivious.
Lorenzo Lugo shouted a lewd and lascivious personal insult at a police officer during a public confrontation. The officer arrested him under a state statute prohibiting offensive speech likely to provoke violence. The court examined whether the words fell outside First Amendment protection.
Luna Lang displayed a banner with lewd and lascivious language at a school-sponsored event. School officials suspended her for violating the district's policy on offensive speech. The court assessed whether the school could regulate the expression without violating student speech rights.
Layla Lane delivered a speech containing lewd and lascivious references that stirred audience unrest. City officials arrested her for disorderly conduct. The court considered whether the content alone justified punishment under the First Amendment.
An intentional invasion of land use and enjoyment is unreasonable when the conduct is contrary to common standards of decency. Courts examine whether the actor used lewd displays or targeted indecent activity to cause significant harm to a neighbor.
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Material qualifies as obscene when it depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way under contemporary community standards and lacks serious value. Lewd and lascivious descriptions supply evidence of prurient appeal and patent offensiveness.
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Officers may draw commonsense inferences from the condition of the premises and the behavior of occupants. Lewd conduct combined with signs of abandonment and drug use supports probable cause that the gathering is unauthorized.
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Lewd and lascivious speech may be regulated when it falls into unprotected categories such as obscenity or fighting words. Schools and governments may also restrict it at school-sponsored events or when it tends to incite immediate breach of the peace.
…of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or fighting' words—those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has…