In the case of Bohannan v. Arizona ex rel. Smith, Attorney General in 1967, the U.S Supreme Court dealt with a dispute over whether or not an individual could be convicted for selling obscene material under Arizona law if they were unaware that the material was considered obscene. The appellant, Mr. Bohannan had been convicted by lower courts for selling allegedly obscene books at his bookstore and appealed on grounds that he did not know these materials were legally classified as 'obscene'. However, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction stating that knowledge of obscenity is not required to violate laws against distributing such content; it's enough to have intent to distribute potentially objectionable materials without considering their nature or character.

In the dissenting opinion for Bohannan v. Arizona, Justice Fortas argued that the majority's decision was a violation of due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. He contended that it is fundamentally unfair to convict someone based on their refusal to testify against themselves, which he believed was essentially what happened in this case. The defendant had been convicted solely because they refused to provide evidence of their innocence - something Justice Fortas saw as an inversion of the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty. Furthermore, he criticized how Arizona law placed an undue burden on defendants by requiring them to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they were not driving while intoxicated when arrested or risk automatic conviction if they chose not to testify.