Supreme Court Voids Animal Abuse Law
[Guest post by DRJ]
The Supreme Court voided an animal abuse law on First Amendment grounds:
“Chief Justice John J. Roberts Jr., writing for an eight-member majority, said the law was overly broad and not allowed by the First Amendment. He rejected the government’s argument that whether certain categories of speech deserve constitutional protection depends on balancing the value of the speech against its societal costs.
“The First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits,” Roberts wrote. “The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs. Our Constitution forecloses any attempt to revise that judgment simply on the basis that some speech is not worth it.”
The law was enacted in 1999 to forbid sales of so-called “crush videos,” which appeal to a certain sexual fetish by depicting the torture of animals or showing them being crushed to death by women with stiletto heels or their bare feet. But the government has not prosecuted such a case. Instead, the case before the court, United States v. Stevens, came from Robert Stevens of Pittsville, Va., who was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison for videos he made about pit bull fighting.”
The opinion ruled the law is overbroad because it could outlaw legal acts such as hunting, but left the door open to more carefully worded legislation. Justice Alito dissented, stating “The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, but it most certainly does not protect violent criminal conduct, even if engaged in for expressive purposes.”
Supporters wanted the Court to craft a free speech exception for animal abuse cases similar to the exception for pornography.
— DRJ
My layman’s opinion is the majority got it right. The government’s balanced value nostrum is the first step on an exceedingly slippery slope.
ropelight (e6e651) — 4/20/2010 @ 3:56 pmI agree that the majority got it right here.
The law was facially unconstitutional, and it was applied abusively in this case.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 4/20/2010 @ 4:13 pmNot only did the majority get it right, those in Congress that voted for this law should have known it was unconstitutional when they voted on it.
But then again they passed McCain-Feingold so this law is a small creek compared to the tsunami of M-F.
MU789 (25b69d) — 4/20/2010 @ 7:08 pmMinor nit, there is no general 1st amendment pornography exception. There are obscenity and child porn exceptions.
Soronel Haetir (795f5a) — 4/20/2010 @ 11:02 pmAnother reason for some to hate this decision:
AD - RtR/OS! (5a3560) — 4/20/2010 @ 11:09 pmThe NRA advocated for this result.
According to Lex Elena Kagan may have damaged her case for being appointed to SCOTUS by how her brief in defense of the law was mauled in the opinion.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 4/21/2010 @ 12:10 amWhat I find interesting about this sort of case is that congress has set aside a step to analyze if laws are constitutional.
Library of Congress indicates this law was not marked up but the Constitution subcommittee at the House Judiciary Committee, but the committee at large voted to favorably report the bill 22-4 (it was Hyde’s committee at the time).
Nothing about their findings even discuss 1st Amendment implications. Typical that they don’t ask tough questions.
The law is very short. They even note “does not apply to any depiction that has serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value.” so they clearly had some kind of idea that this pertains in some way to freedom of speech. But they deliberately avoided the analysis.
While they also say it wouldn’t have any significant costs, the litigation of laws that are not fully vetted seems expensive enough to me.
The ruling is here (pdf).
Frankly, there’s no way to read the law and the ruling and come away without realizing some kind of analysis of the constitutionality should have occurred. We staff a lot of people for the purpose of making that analysis, too.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 4/21/2010 @ 12:42 amyou give the morons in Washington way too much credit. chances are the only analysis was “what will this do for my polls?”
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 4/21/2010 @ 1:05 amapparently the library of congress’s extremely expensive website doesn’t properly handle hyperlinks and deleted my link. The law was less than a page long.
Red, I really do demand a lot better than we’re getting. I’m naive and judgmental that way. I know you’re right that they were making a law to prove how tough they are on crime and worried mainly about polls.
But they employ a lot of people. House Judiciary employs dozens of people, many of them are lawyers, and they could easily write a law that cramps the style of ‘crush’ filmmakers if they sat down and considered legal challenges.
On the other hand, when they make a new law, they get to look tough on crime again. So maybe it’s in their best interest to have the law struck down as many times as possible so they keep racking up the easy story.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 4/21/2010 @ 1:26 am