U.S. Supreme Court overturns animal cruelty law

The Court then went on to analyze the 1999 law under traditional First Amendment principles, and found it went too far. The law makes it a crime, with up to five years in prison, to make, seell or possess a “depiction of animal cruelty,” if any of those acts is done for commercial gain. It defines “animal cruelty” depiction as one in which a living animal “is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed,” provided that the action violates a federal or state law. The law says that it does not apply to depictions if they have “serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value.”

While the Court conceded that Congress had passed the law to try to stop interstate trafficking in so-called “crush videos,” showing the actual killing of cats, dogs and other small animals by stomping or other intensely cruel methods, it said the resulting law itself reached far more than that kind of portrayal. Limiting the law’s reach to those depictions, the opinion said, would require the Court to give “an unrealistically broad reading” to the exceptions Congress wrote into the law...

Roberts wrote: “The Government proposes that a claim of categorical exclusion should be considered under a simple balancing test: ‘Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs.” Calling that “a free-floating test for First Amendment coverage” and a “highly manipulable balancing test,” the Chief Justice said the test was “startling and dangerous. The First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative costs and benefits. The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs. Our Constitution forecloses any attempt to revise that judgment simply on the basis that some speech is not worth it.”

On April 21 2010 01:16 KwarK wrote:
This isn't a slippery slope. You can say that animals have the right to not be tortured to death without giving them the vote. It's not all or nothing, you can give them a right without giving them human rights. If only there were some kind of term for what that would be. Like human rights, but for the rights of animals.

Edit: That said, I believe there is a hypocrisy in giving animals rights while we continue to treat them the way we do. I think animal cruelty should come under a behavior likely to cause public outrage kind of offence rather than animal rights because that is essentially the problem. We don't really care about animals except the cute fluffy ones that we don't eat. It's not a question of animal rights, just one of causing offence to the sensitive hearts of people.

On April 21 2010 01:09 DexterHGTourney wrote:
This is an area where I'm sure hardly anyone agrees with me, though logically, most people are so hypocritical and illogical it blows my mind when it comes to this issue.

Do I agree with the decision? Yes. For the reasons stipulated by the SCOTUS? No. Animals do not have rights. Therefore, animal cruelty while heinous and sickening should not be illegal. They overturned the law based on the First Amendment, but I think they should have went further and dissected the issue at hand. Do animals have rights or not? Now, Governments do not grant rights, they merely enumerate them. Rights are negative. Our rights deriving from Natural Law, and recognized as such by the formation of this Union (Decl. of Independance, ConCon, AoC, state Constitutions, etc.). If indeed they do not have rights, then they are property. Since reason and sentience is for me, a pre-requisite to the self-evidence of Natural Rights, then it becomes quite silly to criminalize someone for harming their own property. Moreover, if we are to believe that animals do have the right to life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness then how do we hold them accountable? As is, liberty is borne from negative rights. Where you have the liberty to do as you please as long as you do not infringe on anothers liberty. Once this occurs both parties must have the sentience to acknowledge and to formulate just laws to recompense for this violation.

It is blindingly clear that animals show no ability to either acknowledge through reason or any semblance of sentience these truths. In that vein, the SCOTUS should have struck down all Federal Laws on the books criminalizing the use of the persons property (animal).

The next question begs, that if you support the notion that animals have rights, then you must criminalize a host of areas. Any murder of an animal would be punishable the same as a murder of a human being since we share the same rights. I mean, are people ready to go down that road? That also means you cannot own pets, since slavery violates the rights of the animal. So how do we bring animals to justice? Yeah...

Now, I do not support the disgusting acts perpetuated upon defenseless animals. I also however, do not support criminalization.

On April 21 2010 01:22 Romantic wrote:
I didn't read the judges' decision, but to me it seems the law had to go. Who is going to decide what is artistic, cultural, religious, or scientific lol. So I can make a video of a cat being killed if it is artistic? Shit law.

On April 21 2010 01:31 ggrrg wrote:
3 years in prison for filming pit bull fights is ridiculously stupid for many reasons

On April 21 2010 01:37 KwarK wrote:

Pit Bull Terriers kill children in the UK, one or two a year. They're a breed created for mindless aggression and the entire breed should be culled. They're illegal in the UK. I'd support disproportionate punishment for anyone having anything to do with them simply because it's near impossible to stop them attacking someone eventually.

On April 21 2010 01:53 Biochemist wrote:


Pit Bull Terriers who attack children are like any other dog who attacks children. In virtually every instance I've ever heard of, few if any attempts were ever made to socialize the dogs. If you leave a high-energy dog chained in your backyard for its entire life, should you be surprised when a child climbs over your fence and gets mauled? It's the owner's fault, not the breed.

Pit Bulls aren't what they were when dog fighting was common. How long has it been since we were selecting for aggression? How many generations has it been now that dog owners are actually selecting AGAINST aggressive tendencies? If pit bulls cause more problems than other breeds, it's more likely to be a symptom of the type of person likely to get a pit bull (i.e. the type of person that leaves it chained in the backyard) and not one of the breed itself.

On April 21 2010 01:44 KwarK wrote:
Seen one with a puppy and stillettos. There was a mewing and a crunch but it didn't move after the first impalement. I had a friend who liked to send me videos like that on msn. People have weird fetishes, I guess it's easier than going out into the woods and trapping your own animals to hurt, especially if you're fat or live in the city.