U.S. v. Stevens

[GirlAfire]

I apologize if this has been posted before. I looked, but I didn't see any mention of this case.

Supreme Court Term ’09: Animal Torture is not Free Speech
Posted Oct 6 2009 - 11:23am
By Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Pacelle also blogs at A Humane Nation, where the article is cross-posted.

Today the United States Solicitor General Elena Kagan will stand before the Supreme Court and argue that the federal Depiction of Animal Cruelty Law is not only constitutional but urgently needed to stop the abuse of animals. Congress passed the law by overwhelming margins in 1999 to halt the interstate sale of videos depicting illegal acts of animal cruelty, including so-called "animal crush" videos, where women in stiletto heels crush, impale, and even burn small animals in order to titillate viewers.

The law caused the crush video industry to recede dramatically and no prosecutions of purveyors of crush videos have been needed in the decade that the law was in force. The law has never been used against documentary filmmakers, journalists or others engaging in legitimate speech -- the only three prosecutions under the law have involved dogfighters who sold videos in interstate commerce for profit. Dogfighting is a federal felony and a felony in every state -- making it the most widely and severely criminalized form of animal cruelty in the United States.

The case before the court is U.S. v. Stevens, and it comes to the court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit threw out the conviction of dogfighting impresario Robert Stevens that was handed down by a federal jury in Pennsylvania. Stevens peddled several videos -- "Japan Pit Fights," "Pick a Winna," and "Catch Dogs and Country Living" -- all of which showed grossly inhumane treatment of animals, including some staged in Japan. Stevens apparently shipped three dogs to Japan for the fights shown in one video. Some of the fights last for more than an hour, and the dogs are bloodied and suffering throughout.

The federal law has an exemption for materials with "serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value." After viewing the videos and hearing days of arguments on both sides, the jury found that Stevens' videos had no such qualities and was an unvarnished dogfighting promotional video, showing acts of cruelty illegal in the United States.

http://www.acslaw.org/node/14303