UPDATE: Our full story on the decision in United States v. Stevens can be found here.
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In a strong embrace of its traditional First Amendment doctrines, the Supreme Court today found unconstitutional a federal law that criminalized the sale or possession of certain depictions of animal cruelty.
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., writing for an 8-1 majority, said the law was "substantially overbroad" because it could criminalize, for example, hunting videos in the District of Columbia where hunting is illegal. The Court also agreed that unlike categories such as obscenity, fraud, and defamation, there is no long history of viewing depictions of animal cruelty as outside the protection of the First Amendment.
After oral arguments last October, we reported that Justice Samuel Alito Jr. was the only member of the Court who appeared sympathetic to the law, and today, he worte the lone dissent. He said the law had a "substantial core of constitutionally permissible applications," namely crush videos and dogfighting videos.
Footnote: The Court completed its announcement of the opinion, the swearing-in of new members of the bar, and then began hearing oral arguments, without making note of Justice John Paul Stevens' 90th birthday today. It is rare but not unheard of for the Court to note milestones from the bench, but in this instance, it may have been the modest Stevens himself who nixed the idea of birthday wishes.
More later at nlj.com.
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