Supreme Court to Weigh In on "Crush Videos"

The US Supreme Court will decide next term whether fetish films that depict the killing of small animals and videos of dogfights are protected by constitutional guarantees of free speech.

The justices said they would review, at the request of the federal government, an appeals court decision that said Congress's broad attempt to discourage animal cruelty by outlawing its depiction violates the First Amendment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia voted 10 to 3 last summer to find unconstitutional the rarely used law passed by Congress in 1999. The appeals court said the goal of protecting against animal cruelty was a worthy one, but one already accomplished by laws in all 50 states and the District of Columbia outlawing the practice.

The 3rd Circuit noted that the Supreme Court is resistant to removing First Amendment protections of depictions even of illegal actions. The last time the court did so was over child pornography. "Preventing cruelty to animals, although an exceedingly worthy goal, simply does not implicate interests of the same magnitude as protecting children from physical and psychological harm," the 3rd Circuit said.

Congress passed the law in order to combat a phenomenon most people have never heard of: "crush videos." According to the House report that accompanied the bill, crush videos depict "women inflicting . . . torture [on animals] with their bare feet or while wearing high heeled shoes. . . . The cries and squeals of the animals, obviously in great pain, can also be heard in the videos."

The Humane Society of the United States also urged the Supreme Court to review the law, saying that the sale of crush videos on the Internet had "all but disappeared" after the law was passed but that sales had been revived by the decision that the law was unconstitutional. "We wouldn't allow the sale of videos of actual child abuse or murder staged for the express purpose of selling videos of such criminal acts, and the same legal principles apply to despicable acts of animal cruelty," said HSUS's president, Wayne Pacelle.

Source: washingtonpost