What is the effect of criminal obscenity laws on the exercise of First Amendment rights?

Whatever chill may arise from Arizona's felony fine system, properly understood, is attributable to the state's legitimate deterrent goal. Any criminal obscenity statute "will induce some tendency to self-censorship and have some inhibitory effect on the dissemination of material not obscene." Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147, 154-55, 80 S.Ct. 215, 219, 4 L.Ed.2d 205 (1959). Those who conduct their affairs close to the boundary of proscribed activity necessarily incur some risks. Although certain criminal penalties might impermissibly chill the exercise of first amendment rights, we are not called upon to delineate the permissible range of measures that a state may employ to regulate obscenity. We hold only that appellants have failed to demonstrate that the effect of Arizona's felony fine provisions, properly understood, on protected expression is not "minor in relation to the need for control of the conduct and the lack of alternative means for doing so." Younger, 401 U.S. at 51-52, 91 S.Ct. at 754. ⁹