Animal cruelty

The U.S. Supreme Court today voted 8-1 to invalidate a federal law that outlawed commercial depictions of animal cruelty. The majority opinion in U.S. v. Stevens concluded that the 1999 law, aimed at curtailing the distribution of videos and other material showing cruelty to animals, was overly broad and therefore a violation of the First Amendment. When Congress passed the law it was intended to curb the distribution of "crush videos," which show women crushing animals to death. The ruling upheld a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which overturned a Virginia man's conviction under the law. Robert Stevens was convicted of violating the law for selling videos showing dog fights and other animal cruelty.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts cited precedent dating back to 1791 that allows for very few government restrictions on the "content of speech." The federal government in defending the law argued that limiting depictions of animal cruelty should be added to the list of speech not protected by the First Amendment.

"It contends," Roberts wrote, "that depictions of ‘illegal acts of animal cruelty' that are ‘made, sold, or possessed for commercial gain' necessarily ‘lack expressive value,' and may accordingly ‘be regulated as unprotected speech.'" Roberts disagreed, writing, "The claim is not just that Congress may regulate depictions of animal cruelty subject to the First Amendment, but that these depictions are outside the reach of that Amendment altogether - that they fall into a ‘First Amendment Free Zone.'"

In analysis for SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston noted that the majority decision did stress "that it was not restricting the power of the government to punish actual acts of animal cruelty, and it noted that such prohibitions have ‘a long history in American law.'" 

Justice Samuel Alito was the only judge to dissent, writing that the majority's opinion, which "has the practical effect of legalizing the sale of such videos and is thus likely to spur a resumption of their production, is unwarranted." Alito also said the majority opinion erred in deciding that the federal government's law was overly broad.

Before the case was argued, The Humane Society's Wayne Pacelle provided his thoughts on its implications for ACSblog. His guest post is here. 

Today Pacelle wrote, "With the Court issuing a disappointing albeit carefully crafted decision, it seems that Congress can step in and write a more narrowly tailored federal statute to prohibit the commercial sale of videos depicting extreme and illegal acts of cruelty. Clearly, it should not be legal to stage a dogfight in your basement and then sell the video of this criminal action."

---

By Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Pacelle also blogs at A Humane Nation, where the article is cross-posted.

---

Today the United States Solicitor General Elena Kagan will stand before the Supreme Court and argue that the federal Depiction of Animal Cruelty Law is not only constitutional but urgently needed to stop the abuse of animals. Congress passed the law by overwhelming margins in 1999 to halt the interstate sale of videos depicting illegal acts of animal cruelty, including so-called "animal crush" videos, where women in stiletto heels crush, impale, and even burn small animals in order to titillate viewers.

The law caused the crush video industry to recede dramatically and no prosecutions of purveyors of crush videos have been needed in the decade that the law was in force. The law has never been used against documentary filmmakers, journalists or others engaging in legitimate speech -- the only three prosecutions under the law have involved dogfighters who sold videos in interstate commerce for profit. Dogfighting is a federal felony and a felony in every state -- making it the most widely and severely criminalized form of animal cruelty in the United States.

The case before the court is U.S. v. Stevens, and it comes to the court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit threw out the conviction of dogfighting impresario Robert Stevens that was handed down by a federal jury in Pennsylvania. Stevens peddled several videos -- "Japan Pit Fights," "Pick a Winna," and "Catch Dogs and Country Living" -- all of which showed grossly inhumane treatment of animals, including some staged in Japan. Stevens apparently shipped three dogs to Japan for the fights shown in one video. Some of the fights last for more than an hour, and the dogs are bloodied and suffering throughout.

The federal law has an exemption for materials with "serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value." After viewing the videos and hearing days of arguments on both sides, the jury found that Stevens' videos had no such qualities and was an unvarnished dogfighting promotional video, showing acts of cruelty illegal in the United States.

In the press, Stevens and his lawyer have claimed that he is a documentarian and that he opposes dogfighting! Yet we know at The HSUS that the man has been deeply involved in promoting dogfighting for decades, and this eleventh-hour courtroom performance is nothing short of an unadulterated lie. Few drug dealers or arsonists admit they are criminals, and that's been our experience with dogfighters too. And I can't recall ever hearing a documentary narrator egging on the subjects to tear each other limb from limb, as Stevens does several times during a 90-minute dogfight in "Pick a Winna."

Before raking in more than $50,000 in three years from the commercial sale of illicit dogfighting videos advertised in underground dogfighting magazines, Stevens wrote a book called "Dogs of Velvet and Steel," which is a dogfighting manifesto and training manual. He's been a major figure within the criminal underworld of dogfighting for decades, and justice was done in convicting him and sentencing him to a term in federal prison.