Hurting Man's Best Friend -- Bad. Selling Videos Of Same -- Good.

MayorBob.

Posted to Legal on Mon Jul 21, 2008 at 06:52:18 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

Morally it might seem a mighty fine line, but for Robert Stevens of Pittsville, Virginia the fact there is a legal difference between treating animals cruelly and selling videos depicting animal cruelty makes a big difference - between 37 months in prison and freedom, to be exact. According to a panel from the US Third District Court of Appeals, the former is a crime and the latter a legitimate expression of free speech. In arriving at their 10-3 decision (pdf doc), they not only gave relief to Stevens, they also overturned a federal law regarding "creation, sale, or possession of animal cruelty."

The decision overturns a law passed by Congress in 1999 aimed at stopping the trafficking in animal cruelty videos. Stevens was the first person prosecuted under the statute after he sold a set of animal cruelty videos to federal investigators in Pittsburgh back in 2004. Stevens' defense was that the videos contained scenes of "old style dogfights" which had some sort of "political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical or artistic value" to them. The argument given during oral presentation before the appeals panel was that selling the videos was a legitimate exercise of Stevens' First Amendment rights.

Stevens' argument proved compelling enough for the majority to void his conviction and declare the law unconstitutional. Circuit Judge D. Brooks Smith, writing for the majority, observed "the Supreme Court has not recognized a new category of speech that is unprotected by the First Amendment in over twenty-five years." Yet, this is exactly what this case required the court to do and "we decline the Government's invitation" to do that. As the Supreme Court had made an exception to the free speech rule when it came to child pornography, the court was asked to consider the creation, sale or possession of animal cruelty videos as being coequal as the creation, sale or possession of child pornography. This was firmly rejected in the majority opinion -- "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 three dissenters disagreed saying the law has value in "protecting animals from wanton acts of cruelty."

A similar case, involving internet cockfights, was filed in federal court last year in Florida. The Justice Department had no reaction to the 3rd Circuit's decision. However, usually when a federal law is overturned by the Court of Appeals, the case which overturned it is usually appealed to the US Supreme Court.