576
Opinion of Thomas, J.
A
In addressing this question, the parties first dispute the nature of the community standards that jurors will be instructed to apply when assessing, in prosecutions under COPA, whether works appeal to the prurient interest of minors and are patently offensive with respect to minors.7 Respondents contend that jurors will evaluate material using "local community standards," Brief for Respondents 40, while petitioner maintains that jurors will not consider the community standards of any particular geographic area, but rather will be "instructed to consider the standards of the adult community as a whole, without geographic specification." Brief for Petitioner 38.
In the context of this case, which involves a facial challenge to a statute that has never been enforced, we do not think it prudent to engage in speculation as to whether certain hypothetical jury instructions would or would not be consistent with COPA, and deciding this case does not require us to do so. It is sufficient to note that community standards need not be defined by reference to a precise geographic area. See Jenkins v. Georgia, 418 U. S. 153, 157 (1974) ("A State may choose to define an obscenity offense in terms of 'contemporary community standards' as defined in Miller without further specification . . . or it may choose to define the standards in more precise geographic terms, as was done by California in Miller"). Absent geographic
7 Although the phrase "contemporary community standards" appears only in the "prurient interest" prong of the Miller test, see Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 24 (1973), this Court has indicated that the "patently offensive" prong of the test is also a question of fact to be decided by a jury applying contemporary community standards. See, e. g., Pope v. Illinois, 481 U. S. 497, 500 (1987). The parties here therefore agree that even though "contemporary community standards" are similarly mentioned only in the "prurient interest" prong of COPA's harmful-to-minors definition, see 47 U. S. C. § 231(e)(6)(A), jurors will apply "contemporary community standards" as well in evaluating whether material is "patently offensive with respect to minors," § 231(e)(6)(B).
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