The Supremes, Special thanks to AP215 for this pic

So maybe that title is a bit misleading. Really what The Supremes did is shoot down a federal law that banned the creation and selling of animal cruelty videos including dogfighting. These videos feature “conduct in which a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded or killed.”

Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority for the 8-1 decision. Who was the one holdout? Justice Alito and wrote the dissent saying the majority analysis would protect “depraved entertainment.”

Animal cruelty is illegal in every state so why shouldn’t footage of it be illegal also?

To be fair, unfortunately, though this ruling may seem outrageous, especially considering laws on child pornography, The Supremes are bound sometimes by these tricky things called laws.

In this case The First Amendment protection of free speech was a factor but so was the 1999 federal law in question.

Read more about this decision and what congress can do at nytimes.com

Are you offended by comparisons of animal cruelty videos to child pornography? How would you have ruled in this case?

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