Legal Commentary

Is there a free speech right to sell and to own graphic videos of dogs fighting?

In nullifying the law, the Circuit Court refused to create a new exception to the First Amendment to apply to portrayals of animal cruelty. It noted that the Supreme Court ?last declared an entire category of speech unprotected? by the Amendment in 1982 (in New York v. Ferber, involving child pornography). The Circuit Court rejected a government argument that the depiction of animal cruelty was analogous to the depiction of child pornography.

[T]he Justice Department argued that the 1999 law is narrow in scope, applying only to a ?particularly harmful class of speech,? only when that is done for commercial gain, and only when the particular depiction has ?no serious societal value.?

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Full post as published by Althouse on April 20, 2009 (boomark / email).