Supreme Court Voids Animal-Cruelty Law on First Amendment Grounds
If you love animals as much as I do, it’s extremely difficult not to get upset about the Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday in the case of United States v. Stevens. The case was a constitutional challenge to Section 48, the federal law that criminalized the sale of depictions of animal cruelty, notably dogfighting videos and “crush” videos showing small animals mutilated by high heels to gratify a human sexual fetish.
Sadly for the animals and the people who care about their welfare, by a vote of 8 to 1, the Court held that the law violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment and is therefore unenforceable. The decision threw out the criminal conviction of Robert Stevens, who was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for making and selling despicably violent videos of dogfights. How clever of Stevens to challenge his sentence on First Amendment grounds: now he’s free to make and sell more sickening “entertainments.”
Justice Samuel Alito Jr. is a dog lover and the lone dissenting vote. He said that the harm animals suffer in dogfights is enough to sustain the law, and that the ruling will probably spur the creation of new “crush” videos, because it has “the practical effect of legalizing the sale of such videos.” Of course, Justice Alito is right.
Key outlets of the mainstream media — the same MSM that almost always gets it wrong whenever animals make the news — wholeheartedly supported invalidating Section 48. They include (surprise!) the New York Times and National Public Radio. Being biased, the MSM, as usual, just couldn’t report this pet story with care. No, they had to pit the “animal rights activists” against the free-speech zealots as if they were hosting, well, a dogfight. Anyone who cares about animals is, in the MSM’s opinion, an “animal rights activist” (read: terrorist). Yet nothing could be further from the truth; Justice Alito is the proof.
The MSM couldn’t be bothered to quote the calm, rational Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), experts on animal cruelty laws; no, they went right to PETA, the ever-controversial group that, despite its often clearheaded arguments, is now, unfortunately, stereotyped in the public’s imagination — with the MSM’s help — as the radical pro-animal fringe. Which means that anything PETA says, no matter how reasonable or compelling, will be neatly dismissed. Minor MSM outlets have the arrogance to register amazement that a conservative — of all people! — should show compassion for animals.
On AOL, Mara Gay wrote:
Meanwhile, some animal rights activists were surprised to find themselves siding with the conservative Justice Samuel Alito Jr. Alito, a dog owner who protested that the purpose of the law was “not to suppress speech, but to prevent horrific acts of animal cruelty.”
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals agreed. In a statement, the often rabidly liberal animal rights organization said it is “not in the spirit of the constitution to allow or encourage gratuitous depictions of torture for sexual gratification or profit.” And, PETA said, “allowing these videos to be distributed can incite harm by encouraging others who are inclined toward violence to engage in cruel and felonious acts — for the camera or otherwise.”
PETA is right, of course, but if its comments are prefaced by Gay’s knee-jerk “rabidly liberal” epithet, what rolling eyeballs will bother to read further? And why should it be so surprising to the MSM when conservatives make animal welfare a priority? Yes, Virginia, there are pro-animal people on both sides of the aisle: Justice Alito was nominated by President George W. Bush; Section 48 was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, but it was introduced in 1999 by Rep. Elton Gallegly of California — a (gasp) Republican.
“How clever of Stevens to challenge his sentence on First Amendment grounds: now he’s free to make and sell more sickening “entertainments.””
No, he isn’t. Animal cruelty laws exist, and are enforceable–this ruling only states this exact law is not enforceable because it is not constitutional. It says nothing about animal cruelty laws.
I can hardly believe that anyone could rationally compare the sexual abuse of children with cruelty to animals.
This is where animal rights activists and groups lose people like me, by trying to accord animals equal status with human beings.
I am by no means trying to justify needless cruelty to any of God’s creatures but I remain convinced that animals were created as lower in spiritual importance than man and thus put on this planet to serve man.
I am also convinced that people who grant animals an equal or higher status than people are at heart and soul animalistic and thus antagonistic and hostile to people and given the chance would exert more cruelty to other human beings than they ever would to an animal. The Nazis for example loved animals and ended up murdering more than 6 million Jews, and millions of non Jews, but they loved their animals.
The Jewish Faith teaches that animals, God’s creation, have souls of their own, but that these animal souls are lower in scale and far more savage than the human souls that God gave people. The Rabbis also warned against people becoming too close to their animals and pets because the animal soul is powerful in some rather unexpected ways and can even come to dominate the human soul if the owner of the animal does not keep his distance from the pet.
I know this sounds bizarre and I used to think so too, until a friend of mine told be he had taken a page in synagogue yearbook to mourn his beloved pet dog that had died that year. I have since met many other pet owners who would gladly spend tens of thousands of dollars to get the best vetrinary care for their sick animal, but would balk at giving charity to help a sick old lady have an operation. Look at the Queen of Mean, Leora Helmsley, who cut most of her family out of her will and left the majority of her rather large estate to her cat. That was just sick and there is no other way to describe it and this is what terrifies me about animal rights groups and activists, they take it too far.
The Nazis for example loved animals
So did Saint Francis and Mohandas Gandhi. Does that mean they were Nazis?
Pro-animal? Just what we need, another advocacy group. The average pet in this county gets better nutrition and medical than much of the worlds humans. Yes there are occasional abuses, but I am willing to bet there are at least as many abused children in this country as there are animals. Come judgment day, I believe it will difficult to explain why one spent more time and money working for animal rights while children in the world went hungry and died early. And yes I have pets. The cat is out fighting global warming right now by killing all the little carbon spewing rodents she can find.
Paul;
Most famines have political causes. If children are going hungry and dying early, blame their parents for not ending their wars or not caring enough about their children to fix the sorry state of their societies.
We’ve already given billions to poor countries. I’m tired of the whinging that somehow my soul is accountable because some other country can’t get its act together. I don’t feel the least bit obligated for suffering I didn’t cause and whose perpetrators could easily fix themselves.
Please, explain how an atheist ever has a feeling of obligation. I don’t understand. Please, enlighten me.
I believe that the sense of obligation comes not from the details of one’s personal philosophy, but from one’s sense of honorable adherence to it. Thus, the profoundly religious person might say one feels obligation arising e.g. out of their love for God, and the adamantly non-theist might say it arises from one’s sense of honor to one’s self and one’s sense of reality.
Right, so what is honor to an atheist? Being consistent with their reality? What about a person who is consistently bad. Are they honorable?
The fool [FOOL] has said in his hear, there is no God.
The only think that makes any sense, as far as a sense of self, Honor, righteousness, etc is to understand that all people, all created things, are relative to a perfect and Holy God. The Bible speaks of such a character, as it were. For God is self-existing, and even now is more real than all of our conversations multiplied. It also makes sense of the physical universe.
If anyone responds to this in the negative I ask that you respond, at least, to the the first part of the comment, or nothing at all.
So we have dispensed with the emotional foundation of obligation. Your next question deals with the rightfullness of honor. It is entirely possible for someone to feel [FEEL] a sense of honor, despite their actions being utterly evil. Consider the Muslim who uses a dull blade to scrape the genitalia from a young girl. He considers himself an honorable person, behaving righteously in sight of Allah. So it is entirely possible to be in opposition to reality, and yet feel honorable about it. This is also true in the case of non-theists. A secular humanist can quite honorably propound a code of conduct which is antithetical to life and liberty, with disastrous consequences (e.g., the hazardous economic and social policies of the present Administration). Hence, the adherence to or freedom from theism per se is not itself conclusive in this matter.
But I speak of the feeling of honor, and you spoke of honor as an absolute, and that necessarily begs the question of absolute with respect to what? In all cases, the final arbiter is reality. For the theist, that reality includes the existence and love of God, and proof comes in daily faith and upon delivery to heaven in the afterlife. For the non-theist, it comes in the form of the results of their moral code in this world, the evidence that they are either life-affirming or life-denying. The risk for the non-theist comes if he denies the evidence of his own eyes, when he sees what he believes rather than believing what he sees, and so discards the proof that the consequences of his moral code are evil. Try getting a secular humanist to admit that his concept of brotherhood leads inexorably to the dominance of the state over the individual. The risk for the theist comes if he places his faith in the hands of a deity without honor (thus making my discourse circular;>). Try getting a radical Islamist to admit that his concept of a peaceful world leads inexorably to the dominance of men over women and insanity over all. In the end, it all comes down to axioms and what you call proof.
But tormenting animals as part of a laboratory experiment is still legal?
I used to subscribe to a science magazine and was getting nauseated by the stuff they were doing to dogs, rabbits, mice, etc They would break their bones, burn them, expose them to radiation, force them to ingest dangerous chemicals, etc. Some of them were so covered in lesions and tumors you weren’t sure what animal it originally had been.
Makes a decent person shudder …
Care to put a time line on when you read these animal torture science magazines…
The amount of paperwork and oversight required to fulfill ethical requirements and regulations ensure that animals that are used for scientific testing are treated in the best possible fashion. There were a lot of studies done in the past (especially in regards to behaviorism) that today are illegal.
Medical testing in animals is a requirement because there are no better alternatives. Believe me, if there was a way to simulate the human body effectively to perform medical testing, science would not bother with the cost and the difficulty in using animal research. It is a necessary evil unless we want to completely destroy any effective means at bettering human life.
Also, this is never mentioned by the likes of PETA, animal testing serves animals as well. Much of what we know and use in ecology, conservation, veterinary medicine, animal husbandry, farming, basically any interaction humans have with animals has been benefited by animal testing.
If you had a beloved pet you could no longer take care of, would you donate it to be used in such a way to better the life of humanity? Answer honestly.
Many people who support vivisection would not – a telling hypocrisy.
I’ve picked up Scientific American on occasion at the library and read an article describing how the bones of rabbits were broken to test something or other. That was about two years ago, so this sort of thing still goes on. Doesn’t sound like “best possible treatment” to me, but your mileage may vary. Half the drugs tested on animals have to be pulled back because of unforeseen side-effects that weren’t picked up in the animal testing. That’s not a very effective use of animal resources.
Recall that drug in Britain that passed the animal testing but left its human takers in a coma.
Reminds me of the descriptions of the horrors imposed on humans by the previous Iraq government, the N. Koreans, China, Afghanistan, Nazi Germany and countless other countries including ours as recently as the 1950s. From the early days of the atomic age our government allowed or looked the other way while US researchers experimented and tortured people in Tennessee, Texas, Nevada, Utah and other states. In my state it was routinely poisoning children at orphanages and then monitoring them to see how they died and how long it took. This is largely been whitewashed or covered up as we can’t look these terrible things in the face and admit that we to did these things to our own people. It’s wrong on animals and on people. But if given a choice for the next cure for cancer to come from the killing of a rabbit instead of a person I will allow, reluctantly for the rabbit. At the same time I demand that science loose it’s agnostic life does not matter stance and recognize it’s moral and ethical obligation to treat the animals they require with dignity and take no more than are truly required. Over time scientists become immune and disrespectful of these creatures so as to lesson their own guilt. But by doing so they stop respecting those they are trusted with and turn from indifference, to abuse rather quickly as plenty of strong evidence has proven out. Like a prison guard who goes form empathy to apathy to torture of the prisoners so to, do scientists do to animals. Not to mix topics but I wonder at the ethics of science who would do such things and then in the next breath tell us about global warming and expect us to believe they do so without any manipulations or dishonesty. Not mentioning that the more drastic it all sounds the more money they get in grants, the more power and media attention and worldly rewards. They have a vested interest in lying about weather changes why would I believe they don’t do the same thing when it comes to animal? I don’t.
I read about this a few months ago from a 2nd Amendment mag, and it seems that there might be some misinformation here. As far as I knew, the case was about a guy who made videos of hunting dogs (primarily of the breed Pit Bull) and happen to also have footage of despicable (to him also) dog fighting. Anti-hunters were trying to block the guy from selling his video on the grounds of animal cruelty.
Here is part of one article (not from the 2nd Amendment mag): “Stevens was prosecuted under a 1999 law that criminalized videos depicting animal cruelty in an attempt to target the trade of fetish films showing women in high heels crushing to death small animals such as hamsters or kittens.”… so, it is the prosecution that has brought this image of crushing animals to the public attention.
The way some are reporting of this case you sure do get the impression that the Supreme Court is siding with animal crushing as a form of protected speech, or as if their hands are tied to protect animals, or as if the guy Roberts is responsible for cruelty to animals. The false impressions seem to have been carried by this PajamasMedia article, as well. In fact, they have. This article said absolutely nothing about hunting.
Do a little bit of research, folks.
Have to say that I agree with the Court’s findings.
What if a Journalist were to tape a dogfight undercover and distribute the tape?
That was also a violation of Section 48.
How about a CG creation of animal cruelty for a documentry to show how bad dog fights can be?
Yep, violated Section 48.
The point is that somewhere out there you have an abuse waiting to happen with the way Section 48 was written, and one overzealous (or partisan) bureaucrat could very quickly place a chill on anyone involved in entertainment who didn’t act properly due to certain depictions within their distributed media.
Don’t believe me?
Check with Brian Robertson of Moore, Oklahoma.
Or William Poole of Calrk county Kentucky for a Second Opinion.
And if you don’t know who they are I strongly suggest you find out!
jd
I was initially rather unhappy about the ruling, but after reading Alito’s opinion, I’m rather encouraged. What he said was, while it is legal to sell and have those videos, what is depicted in those films is still a crime.
If somebody has one of those videos, they have information on a crime, and they can be subpoenaed and compelled to testify as to its source. They can’t plead the 5th, because they aren’t on trial, and they have to answer, or they’re in contempt of court.
You don’t have to be on trial in order to plead the 5th.
That is right. If a cop pulls you over and asks if you know why he pulled you over, just look at him, he cannot force you to talk and incriminate yourself. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. No where at all is there the idea that anything you say can and will be used to defend you from criminal charges.
You have a right not to incriminate yourself, but because having the movies is not illegal now, then they cannot incriminate themselves by testifying about them. The example of being pulled over by a cop is a situation where you stand accused of a crime, and thus can incriminate yourself.
If, instead, the question the cop asks is “Did you see a yellow Ford truck pass by here,” you are legally obligated to answer truthfully, because the awareness of yellow Ford trucks is not a criminal act.
To say it again, everyone who has these things becomes a hostile witness. And, yes, a hostile witness can be compelled to testify non-self incriminating information.
We raise mice to feed our ball python. A small mouse is a single serving size. Snakes in the garden and the barn also use choice in what they eat.
I never considered doing videos.
I feel lame, old, or something. I thought I was hip to what the peeps are doing these days. Alas, I had never heard of a crush video. It was an entirely new concept for me. So I looked it up: wikipedia says there is a crush video entitled…SMUSH.
Will the sequel be called SPLAT?
baal,
I found out about ‘crush’ when reading about Jessie James’ Girlfriend (Michelle McGee) apparently she’s in a few of those kind of videos.
jd
I did not know that animals were covered by our Constitution. The federal government is out of control controlling our lives and you want us to support yet another federal law. Next thing you know people will be spending time in federal prison for rubbing their dogs nose in it’s poop on the carpet.
It always surprises me when people broadly construe advocacy for animals as a “liberal” issue. Thanks for the reminder that the torture of animals is an issue that can and should cross all political borders.
People interested in speaking out to their legislators on this issue can stay tuned for how to take action on the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s website at http://www.aldf.org/article.php?list=type&type=85.
Only 1 justice had the the balls to stand on his convictions. The other 8 justices are puppets, it just depends whose pulling the strings. Somebody hollars 1st amendment right violation and supreme court turns to mush. That’s like was like saying on April 5, 2010, outside of Geneso, Illinois a kitten was found nailed by a rear paw to a pole. That lovable defenseless kitten died 3 days later. Those criminals have yet to be found. I guess nothing would be done to them because they were expressing free speech. Those people say there is a difference between humans and animals. Maybe so, but a life is a life. All our animals are doing are asking to be loved. I say the hell with supreme court, they defend free speech but are afraid to speak freely themselves. What would they say to a small child whose pet was killed? Sorry that animal didn’t matter. Perhaps it’s the supreme court who doesn’t matter!!!!!
Anyone who doesn’t agree with you is just a puppet who’s strings are being pulled????
Is that you Obama?
As to your example of a kitten, as the article points out, that is still animal abuse, which is still illegal.
Get off your emotional high and start dealing with reality.
It’s not the job of a judge to stand on his convictions. It’s their job to apply the constitution to the law in question.
Only one Justice had the disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America to rule in a way which, if in the majority, would allow the government to continue to act in an unconstitutional manner.
Want to protect animals, come up with a constitutional amendment. Otherwise, get used to the idea that the constitution protects humans.
I am going to go with the idea that animals for every respect are not equal to humans; are even less equal when it comes to protection through the Constitution of the United States of America; and say that the law is unconstitutional. Pretty much end of the story.
I personally do not abuse animals, and I find it disturbing that some people would abuse animals for pleasure. I however do not find that it is any business of the government, Federal, State or even local to criminalize abuse of an animal that is fully owned by the abuser or is abused with consent of the owner.
Animals simply are not human and thus cannot be treated humanely period, and to try to make them human would destroy the fabric of society. If societies citizens wish to shun and ridicule abusers, that is their right, but to criminalize is beyond the scope of a civilized society. We hunt animals, sometimes the weapons used do not kill quickly, if you gave animals human rights, then hunting would be gone. We slaughter animals for food and clothing, and sometimes, not often, the animals are not killed quickly and suffer for some time, so giving animals human rights would preclude us from eating animal meat and wearing animal skin/fur. Sometimes we have pets we love, but when they get sick we just cannot afford a very large veterinary bill to make them better and we have them euthanized, again, if we grant them a humane treatment we would not be allowed to do this. PETA kills healthy animals they simply do not care to feed and water and take care of. While it is good to treat animals with as much dignity as we can, it should not be ever true that a human can be considered a criminal based on how they (mis)treat an animal for which they have absolute total ownership of.
Only when a person harms some other person’s owned animal should it be criminal.
Agreed.
Bravo Sierra period. I don’t care whether it’s human or animal, mean, vindictive behavior is not needed in society. That section of society that does so is nothing but trash, as well as those who support it.
Thank you for highlighting the thoughtful response of Animal Legal Defense Fund attorney Matthew Liebman to the Stevens ruling. Mr. Liebman’s analysis provides a well reasoned assessment of the ruling and a useful call to action on how to produce a revised bill to stop this clear enabling of already illegal animal cruelty done for purposes of entertainment and profit. Support for a revised bill that satisfies the concerns of a majority of the Justices should be the next order of business.
I’m so sick and tired of judicial hair-splitting and wondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Producing and selling videos of mutants killing animals for sick kicks is a protected right of free speech? Bull Effing Shyte it is!
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”, is the First Ammendment text. Now where in the F O C K does it say anything about your right to make sickshyte videos to even sicker perverts, huh?
Common sense is a rare commodity in this nation these days!
“Now where in the F O C K does it say anything about your right to make sickshyte videos to even sicker perverts, huh?”
It says it right here:
“or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”
You get to say and publish what you want to, period, with terribly few exceptions regarding creating immediate danger and sedition and espionage in time of war. There is nothing here, however, that says states cannot criminalize what you are speaking and publishing about…which is why the original post and it’s supporters are being hysterical over a non-problem.
A crime happened in the making of these videos. The fact the videos exist and were distributed commercially is not it. So go after that actual crime, which is what was done in the making of the videos, which state laws cover just fine.
Will the court help save our wild horse?? Someone needs to sue the BLM and their actions against our national treasures-wild horse. See the Cloud Foundation. com for info.
So, the acts that these films depict can be deemed illegal, but filming them and selling them are not? Folks, Constitutional law is really just make believe. It truly is based upon what the judge had for breakfast that morning. Obviously, Alito was the only one who did not have donuts that morning.
Anyone who thinks animal abuse is different, in any way, from human abuse is not thinking. The only reason a “person” would torture an animal,instead of a human child, is because there is no punishment for it. The human, that would do this, is a sociopath, without the ability to feel compassion or empathy.
Kathleen,
Had a similar law existed for human abuse, the Making, Selling, or Owning the movie SAW II would have been a crime.
The key word in the law under section 48 was “Depiction.”
That means you didn’t even have to commit Animal Cruelty in order to be in violation. As I said above, a CG (Computer Graphics) re-enactment of animal cruelty for any reason, be it Sicko Entertainment, or Advocacy could have been held to be in violation of the law. In spite of the fact that no animal was harmed in any way shape or form.
This was a law that was WIDE open to abuse.
The intent of the law, or any law for that matter, is irrelevant. It is the application, and the potential application as regards the Constitution that counts. That is what the court applied.
Animal Cruelty is still a crime. But making a movie that looks like Animal Cruelty should not be, and now is not.
Again, Under Section 48, a reporter who went under cover to a real dogfight for the purpose of exposing what was happening would also be in violation of the law.
And never forget, the true test of any law is not the results before a good judge, but the results when it comes before a bad judge.
jd
This is a poor excuse for a journalistic article but wonderful advocacy for PETA. The people who need scorn heaped on them are the prosecutors who should have gone after him for abusing animals not selling videos.
It appears that the free market is calling me. Time to consult my attorney and get a few friends on the line. If everything is in the clear I’m going to be helping right minded civic activists via a for-hire investigations service. Either directly aiding law enforcement or just letting said activists know who to watch with their cell phones ready. Personally it really doesn’t matter what they do with the info that I give them and as long as the law sees it the same I’m in the clear.
18. Kathleen: You hit the nail on the head. That’s actually one of the symptoms of Anti-Social Personality Disorder. It generally manifests in children though.
I can’t believe there can be a discussion of animal cruelty/compassion and political orientation without mention of Matthew Scully’s awesome book DOMINION. http://www.matthewscully.com/ Scully, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and (needless to say) a conservative, wrote a landmark, classic book on animal suffering at human hands.
WE need to fire all but Alito and put 8 sane people in there with him.
No one has the right to lie or to promote evil behavior. The first amendment was not intended to provide sex perverts with cover for their obscenities.
This court does not understand either the amendments of the Founders or the commandments of the Creator. These should not be addressed as “Mr. Justice”; but as “Mr. Jerkoff”.
Dear White Tiger
Why don’t you try reading something instead of emoting.
You said, “No one has the right to lie or to promote evil behavior. The first amendment was not intended to provide sex perverts with cover for their obscenities.”
While that statement is correct, it is also true that people do have the right to EXPOSE evil behavior and the first amendment was intended to protect the rights of people who want to do just that.
So why do you condemn a court that struck down a law that would make it illegal for a reporter to sneak into a dog fight, record the actions and the individuals attending, and then be arrested for Posessing and Distributing the video he took in an effort to expose the evil?
Because that is exactly the law that the SCOTUS struck down in an 8 to 1 decision.
Your lack of knowledge of the law makes you somewhat unqualified to be passing judgement on the 8 members of the court who rationally concluded that the law violates the first amendment.
Also note, that there are existing laws, that do pass constitutional muster, under which all of the people you are worried about can be prosicuted. The Headline has it wrong, the court did NOT overturn an animal abuse law.
jd
“PETA is right, of course, but if its comments are prefaced by Gay’s knee-jerk “rabidly liberal” epithet, what rolling eyeballs will bother to read further?”
Uh, Julia, the rolling eyeballs occur at the mere mention of PETA. Some writer’s “knee jerk ‘rabidly liberal’ epithet” does not produce that effect. Like it or not, PETA has pulled too many sickening and idiotic stunts over the years for any sane person to take them seriously.