Should this Court adopt the Seventh Circuit's rule that where a district court erroneously excludes evidence that makes up the entirety of a defendant's defense, harmful error must be presumed, particularly in obscenity cases?

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Thomas Alan Arthur faced an indictment relating to his operation of a website which featured text-only erotic stories depicting minors engaging in sexual activity, along with several user profile pictures or avatars that purportedly displayed fictional, cartoon minors engaging in sexual activity. A divided panel of the Fifth Circuit held that it was error for the district court to exclude Mr. Arthur’s sole expert witness, who would have testified regarding the societal value of the challenged works. But two judges of the Fifth Circuit found this error harmless; the third, dissenting judge would have found that where error excludes a defendant’s entire defense, harm must be presumed. Several circuits, most notably the Seventh Circuit, have adopted this as a rule because error which excludes an entire defense should always be harmful. The Fifth Circuit also engaged in an independent review of whether the material was obscene and found that one of the nine counts charged material that was not obscene. In upholding the remaining items as obscene, the panel applied the Miller test, which is more appropriately a test for whether a statute constitutionally proscribes obscene material than a general test for obscenity itself. As this Court is the court of last resort for determining obscenity, this Court should take the opportunity to re-examine Miller considering modern standards and issue clarificatory rulings to assist lower courts in grappling with particular features shown by this case, such as alleged text-only obscenity and depictions of fictional characters of indeterminate age engaged in sexual conduct, by answering the following questions: 1. Should this Court adopt the Seventh Circuit’s rule that where a district court erroneously excludes evidence that makes up the entirety of a defendant’s defense, harmful error must be presumed, particularly in obscenity cases? 2. Does the Miller test adequately express this Court’s standard for determining whether material is obscene, particularly textonly material or material which depicts fictional characters engaged in sexual conduct? I