Dog fight videos called free speech

[sugapablo]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06299/733101-85.stm

The lawyer for a man convicted of distributing videos of dog fighting in the first case of its kind in the country argued to an appeals court yesterday that what her client sold was an expression of free speech.

"This is not a case about animal cruelty," said Karen S. Gerlach, the public defender handling the appeal. Instead, she told a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Robert J. Stevens was the target of an overly broad criminal statute designed to target sexual fetishists.

The court took the matter under advisement and will issue an opinion at a later date.

Mr. Stevens, of Pittsville, Va., was the first defendant in the country to go to trial on the charges. He was convicted in January 2005 in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh of three counts of selling videos that depicted animal cruelty and was sentenced to 37 months in prison.

I'm all for free speech and all but...

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

1. Dogfighting is illegal and violates animal cruelty laws.

I doubt videos of it constitute free speech. It's like saying pedophilia is illegal, but child porn videos are free speech.

A selling a video of an illegal act can't be protected free speech.

[AngryAmish]

11. What about a Cheech and Chong movie?

The analogy is not quite apt (because of storyline and it was not real life). However, if I made a movie of myself smoking a joint would this be punishable? Or someone with a video of people smoking legally in Amsterdam - an illegal act here, legal there?

There is a whole child porn jurisprudence built up. For example taking a picture of a baby taking a bath is not per se child porn. There has to be a sexualized context. I am sure that some lines could be drawn also.

But drawing these lines are hard. Go to youtube and you can find many videos of predators killing prey. Gory but nobody is calling that animal cruelty. The dogs want to fight -- thousands of generations have built gameness and aggressiveness into the dogs.

Bottom line: I don't like dog fighting and it should be illegal. But outlawing the videos is on thin ice with me.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

12. A video of dogfighting that has taken place in a place where it is illegal

is evidence, not free speech.

Obviously, comparing it to fictional illegal acts in movies or animals killing their prey (which is not illegal at all) is a really lame analogy.

[AngryAmish]

13. Dogfighting is legal in japan

Should the videos be illegal here?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

14. Personally, I would say no.

That sets the precedence that if child pornography was legal in another country (and it probably is in some fucked-up place), videos produced in that country would be protected as free-speech here.

Unlike a home movie of drug use in the Netherlands (which is victimless), dogfighting results in death and cruelty. If Japan was truly civilized, they would outlaw it.

[AngryAmish]

15. Child pornography jurisprudence is different

From what I understand (and I am not an expert) child porn is banned because 1. children were harmed in creating it and 2. the use/possession creates people who will abuse children.

The love of dogs is very culture specific. Us westerners love them but they are seen as food in certain parts of the world and an unclean animal in others. They think we are nuts and we think they are nuts.

I am just saying if banning imported dogfighting videos is ok the Repubs could pass a law outlawing drug videos. I think the law would be deeply silly.

But then again, why let the perfect be the enemy of the good? Maybe we can ban these videos yet not ban others!

[Anakin Skywalker]

18. Love of Children Could Be Culture-Specific.

Some cultures just have children so the parents can be cared for in old age.

[LeftyMom]

20. Or for cheap farmhands.

Or they value some children but not others, for example aborting, exposing after birth or abandoning girls and cherishing boys is common behavior in rural China and parts of India.

[entanglement]

22. Got anything to back that up?

That's a very serious allegation. Are you aware that such allegations have been used to justify atrocities against indigenous people by <insert colonial power here> in the past?

[hedgehog]

17. That can't be true!

Everyone knows that there is no such thing as a dog that's bred to fight! It's the owners that make them mean!

[pecwae]

2. Free speech, my ass. nt

[xchrom]

3. i think a video of someone beating this guy with a baseball bat

would be free speech -- but not his dog fighting video.

[JudyM]

9. Right on. nt

[LeftyMom]

21. Want help?

:evilgrin:

[acmejack]

4. That is just sad.

I know he is entitled to a vigorous defense, but for FSM's sake, Karen, watch one of the tapes!

My non-violent mongrolian shepherd wants to bite them both...

[auburngrad82]

5. I would call it evidence

Then I would jail his ass for about 20 years.

BTW, if that works then that should also work as a defense for child porn etc.



Liberal bumper stickers

[NaturalHigh]

6. This has nothing to do with free speech.

Comparing the right of free speech to blatant (and felonious) animal cruelty is abhorrent.

[flvegan]

7. Good. A loss on appeal further solidifies the law and helps

establish intent. Also provides Case Law for the next idiot that tries this.

[lonestarnot]

8. Must be repiglicans with a dog in the fight.

[OhioChick]

10. Free speech?

What a load of BS.

[byronius]

16. I oppose the death penalty, except in this case.

Is that illogical? I'll do it, personally, for free.

[LeftyMom]

19. Animal Cruelty is illegal. Just as kiddie porn is illegal because child molestation is illegal

depictions of illegal animal cruelty are only legal when used in an educational context (for example a video for police or for vets to help recognize signs of dog fighting that included pictures of dog fighting would be legal, just as video teaching health care workers to recognize sexual trauma to small children would be legal though depictions of children with sexually traumatized genitals would normally be illegal.) OTOH, artificial representations of dog fighting or cock fights or whatever made via traditional art or CGI could be legal, just as virtual kiddie porn is legal, because there is no victim.

We just talked about this in school today, so this is actually fresh in my mind.