In Hamling et al. v. United States, the defendants were convicted of violating federal obscenity laws by distributing unsolicited advertising brochures for a book deemed obscene through the mail. The Supreme Court upheld their convictions in 1974, ruling that juries should judge obscenity based on an average person's standards, not those of any particular community. Furthermore, it was determined that explicit material does not have to be utterly without social value to be considered obscene; rather if its "dominant theme taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest" then it can fall under this category. The court also ruled that defendants do not have the right to personally inspect prospective jurors' qualifications and rejected claims about vagueness in federal obscenity statutes.

In the dissenting opinion for Hamling et al. v. United States, Justice Brennan argued that the majority's decision failed to provide clear guidelines on what constitutes obscenity, leading to potential First Amendment violations. He expressed concerns about leaving such determinations up to individual jurors who may have differing views on what is considered obscene or offensive material. Furthermore, he disagreed with the majority's view that a national standard of decency should be applied in obscenity cases rather than local community standards as it could lead to an imposition of a single viewpoint across diverse communities and cultures within America. Additionally, he criticized the use of mailing lists obtained from seized materials as evidence against defendants without proper safeguards ensuring their reliability and accuracy.