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Rh scene if the “ ‘average person, applying contemporary community standards,’ ” would conclude that “the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.” Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 24 (1973). The jury must also make an objective judgment about whether the speech “depicts or describes” sexual conduct “in a patently offensive way,” and whether it “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Ibid. The speaker’s “ ‘belief as to the obscenity or non-obscenity of the material is irrelevant.’ ” Hamling v. United States, 418 U. S. 87, 120–121 (1974). So long as the defendant has “knowledge of the contents of the materials,” her speech may be constitutionally regulated. Id., at 123. An objective, reasonable-person standard applies.

In an effort to bolster its position, the Court floats a different standard for obscenity laws, asserting that “the First Amendment demands proof of a defendant’s mindset to make out an obscenity case.” By “mindset,” the Court apparently means that the defendant must have some awareness that an average person would consider the materials obscene. But the Court draws this conclusion from cases rejecting a strict liability standard—for example, we have held that the proprietor of a bookstore cannot be liable for possessing an obscene book unless he knew what was in it. Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 149, 155 (1959); Mishkin v. New York, 383 U. S. 502, 510–512 (1966); see also Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629, 643–644 (1968). Knowing what the material depicts is not the same as knowing how the average person would react to it—just