Court takes up free-speech case of pit bull videos

[October 06, 2009]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Tuesday in a case that is shaping up as a major fight over free speech rights and shines a spotlight on graphic videos depicting pit bull fights and other acts of animal cruelty.

The Obama administration is asking the court to reinstate a 10-year-old law that bans the production and sale of the videos. A federal appeals court struck down the law and invalidated the conviction of Robert Stevens of Pittsville, Va., who was sentenced to three years in prison for videos he made about pit bull fights.

Stevens noted in court papers that his sentence was 14 months longer than professional football player Michael Vick's prison term for running a dogfighting ring.

Animal rights groups, including the Humane Society of the United States and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and 26 states have joined the administration in support of the law. The government says videos showing animal cruelty should be treated like child pornography, unentitled to any constitutional protection.

Stevens says he also opposes animal cruelty, including dog fighting. But he argues that the government should not be able to jail someone for making films that are not obscene, inflammatory or untruthful. Free speech groups, the National Rifle Association, hunters' organizations and book publishers and sellers say the law threatens First Amendment freedoms.

The NRA and hunters' groups say the law could be used against the makers of hunting videos, although the law's main sponsor, Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., has said it is not intended to apply to depictions of hunting.

When Congress passed the law and then-President Bill Clinton signed it in 1999, lawmakers were especially interested in limiting Internet sales of so-called crush videos, which appeal to a certain sexual fetish by showing women crushing to death small animals with their bare feet or high-heeled shoes.

[Associated Press; By MARK SHERMAN]

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