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I have only read short reports about this decision; I have not read the decision. However, I do have a few observations.
I am a lawyer and also very active in animal rights so these kind of things always tear me in two. But I think I can understand this somewhat. As I understand it, the decision was that the statute was overbroad, meaning while it proscribed activity that could legally be proscribed (animals cruelty), it also proscribed other activity (free speech) that could not.
And if you think about it, this makes some sense. If someone who is fervently against dogfighting were to film an event and include it in a video produced to show how horrible it is and why it should be outlawed, should that person be prosecuted? If the law provides simply that the possession or publication of the video is a crime, then that is exactly what the result would be.
I should note that in most cases when the Court determines that a law is overbroad, often the legislature simply goes and uses the opinion to revise the law to make it compliant with the Constitution. A well written opinion provides a roadmap to correct the law, and in this case such a correction could actually be better for animals rights activists. I hope that's exactly hat they do.
But, if I record the crime I cannot be prosecuted because it would be stifling my speech???? I still don't get it.
The original law banned trafficking in such videos, except for journalistic purposes (and other things). The majority on the Court thought that too broad. You don't get it? Apparently one SC Justice didn't either.
It's a pretty interesting read. They definitely distinguish the act of cruelty from the effect of the law of depicting it. Most of it focuses on the definition of cruelty in the statute, which as written could extend to many things that are not illegal, such as hunting. We could obviously debate whether or not hunting should be legal but at the moment in most states it is. But the opinion definitely does provide plenty of information about how the statute could be revised and pass muster.
I also note that in Justice Alito's dissent he indicated that what he would do would be to vacate the opinion of the lower court and return the case to them to determine whether or not the particular videos for which Stevens was convicted of possessing were protected speech. So even under his alternative opinion, some dogfighting or other videos would be protected speech.
But the opinion definitely does provide plenty of information about how the statute could be revised and pass muster.
Thanks for the site, Crow Girl and I will read it. That's ^ the best sentence in the entire thread, although I did see something similar on several sites NYT, LATimes and other media. On one animal welfare site, it was explained that the law was already in process of being revised.
I can't believe that there are people out there working so so hard to get the right to promote and use these that it makes it to the Supreme Court. That's just so depressing.
And since I believe that the large role of the justice systems is to protect us from ourselves (i.e. the human species from itself) you would think that this sort of thing would have been hashed out long ago. Often the whole legal arena seems just that, a world of law for lawyers and judges to play.
The law as it was passed as ok and stood and seemed to be doing fine right?
Now its not good enough it needs to be sliced and dissected even more and then more and then more - . People just want some freaking common sense applied. No crush video's. If someone has possession of one it better be a cop or a DA or a card carrying journalist working on bringing illegal activities to light - how hard is that? No wonder people hate lawyers.
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