Violent Video Games Are Protected Free Speech Says SCOTUS

On the final day of the 2010 term, as their long summer break beckoned, SCOTUS issued a notable decision involving the regulation of video game content.   Brown v Entertainment Merchants Association is a 7-2 decision invalidating California's ban of violent video game sales to minors on the grounds that such regulation is an unconstitutional restriction on protected free speech.

So now, when California's pre-teens are committing untold violent capital felonies in Grand Theft Auto, at least they will not be breaking the law in the real world.

Under the First Amendment, SCOTUS held that such speech is protected, even if expressed in the format of a violent video game available to minors.  Therefore, the state regulation of such speech would be subjected to a reviewing court's "strict scrutiny".

Under such a standard, California's video game regulation did not survive.  The SCOTUS decision affirms the 9th Circuit's opinion, reaching a similar conclusion that, like books and plays before them, video games are a valid and recognized form of free expression in our society, cloaked with all the protections of the First Amendment.  Such free speech protections do not vary with a new and different medium of communication.

The High Court was unpersuaded by California's rationale that interactive video games posed a special problem by the child's participation in the outcome of the violence depicted on the screen, and therefore required content-based restrictions.

This is one of those "in your face" moments of Americana.  It seems that, if left to our own devices, our multi-faceted talents and diverse commerce-based culture will unerringly produce this stuff for mass public consumption.

Some of the legistlators on the left coast tried to regulate the content of such expression, at least where minors were concerned.  Well, our babies gotta grow-up sometime; why not inject them at an early age with a serious dose of interactive urban crime or intergalactic slaughter. 

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Posted in: constitutional law,felony,First Amendment,Grand Theft Auto,SCOTUS

The Cost of Free Speech

"For the past 20-years, the congregation of the Westboro Baptist Church has picketed military funerals to communicate its belief that God hates the United States for its tolerance of homosexuality, particularly in America's military."  So reads the first line of today's 8-1 SCOTUS decision in the Snyder v Phelps case.

By now, the story is familiar to all of us: Albert Snyder's son, Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, was killed in action in Iraq.  Nearby Corporal Matthew's funeral, members of the Westboro Baptist Church protested, with many members of the congregation carrying anti-gay and anti-america signs.

Albert Snyder sued in federal court (pursuant to diversity of citizenship jurisdiction - when each party is from a different state), claiming the intentional infliction of emotional distress.  A jury awarded Mr. Snyder over 12 million dollars.  The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the verdict on First Amendment grounds.

In affirming the 11th Circuit, the High Court stressed the particular set of facts, as developed by the parties to the dispute.  Key among those facts were that the church protesters advised the police of their planned protest in advance, and obeyed all the restrictions (i.e. staying 1000 feet away from the funeral) placed upon their gathering.

The lone dissenting justice, Samuel Alito, characterized the speech as a "vicious verbal assault" that did not merit First Amendment protection.

Only the hardened zealots among us would condone the disruption of the funerals of our nation's soldiers by protesting against gays in the military with such cheap attention-grabbing tactics.  Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes perhaps said it best:

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought – not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.

Chief Justice Roberts ultimately concluded, along with seven other justices, that the church members were legally allowed to be proximate to the funeral and say what they had to say.  The following excerpt from Roberts' decision perhaps best captures the spirit of Justice Holmes in the sanctity we place on freedom of speech:

Westboro believes that America is morally flawed; many Americans might feel the same about Westboro.  Westboro’s funeral picketing is certainly hurtful and its contribution to public discourse may be negligible….Speech is powerful.  It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and– as it did here– inflict great pain.

Even particularly controversial, virulent and inflammatory free speech remains free; regardless of content.  In upholding the First Amendment in Snyder, the first case sited by Chief Justice Roberts was to the seminal case of Hustler Magazine, Inc vs Jerry Falwell.  That case, from the early 1970s, pitted the evangelical preacher against America's iconoclastic pornographer.

In order to be truly free, the content of our speech simply cannot be regulated by government.  There cannot be a "heckler's veto".

This case belongs to the progeny of the flag burning case from the 1990s and the Nazi march through Skokie, IL from the 1980s.  Each of those forms of controversial speech was protected back in its day; this is just the latest incarnation.

For the scholars among our readers, the oral arguments for this case are at this link.  Definately worth the hour to listen; you get a real feel as to the judicial persona of the various justices.

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Posted in: Albert Snyder,constitutional law,First Amendment,Fred Phelps,free speech,Matthew Snyder,SCOTUS

Are Digital Inspections Constitutional?

Whether a search of your computer is legal depends, in large part, on where the search takes place.  If you are singled-out at an international boarder, for example, you are going to be searched regardless of the presence of a "reasonable suspicion".

If you are in a place where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, on the other hand, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires probable cause prior to a justified police search of your digital data.

This issue is coming-up with increasing frequency as people travel with their digital lives at their side; and thanks to the increasing sophistication of law enforcement search methods.

Courts have determined that international borders are areas where government interests trump any reasonable expectation of privacy, if one even exists at all.  Customs agents at these boarders are trained to look for smugglers, terrrorists, and child pornographers.

The heightened search and seizure powers of Customs agents were tested in a recent case involving a local contract employee with the Walled Lake Consolidated Schools.  Two years ago, Craig Aleo was intercepted at the US-Canadian border in Buffalo, NY.  Customs agents conducted a digital inspection of his laptop and discovered images of child pornography; some of them made and distributed by Aleo.

The former Davisburg resident and Walled Lake schools employee was sentenced last January by federal judge Bernard Friedman to 60-years in federal prison. 

While no one wants their digital life disturbed when traveling through borders, particularly lawyers with briefcases of confidential goldmines, neither does anyone feel sorry for child pornographers or terrorists.

In another recent case, this one involving a suspected "terrorist", the former Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay was routinely subjected to digital inspections whenever he re-entered the US.  Once, upon being searched and released, the Muslim chaplin discovered that the Customs agent left a forensic scan disc in his computer.  Although the chaplain was not a terrorist, he fit the profile, so the digital inspections were conducted.

A thorough digital scan of a lap top computer can take more than 3-hours, and that's without securing a warrant.  Forensic hard-drive copies take even longer to produce.

Digitized information does not always carry signs of illegality like child porn images.  Evidence of terrorism, for example, is often well-hidden and encrypted in the machine's hard-drive. 

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has taken the position that laptop computer searches conducted at international borders are "non-routine" and thus should require some modicum of articulable suspicion. 

Such articulable suspicion is required by highly invasive search modes such as the search of a person's ailmentary canal.  A laptop search is probably even more intrusive as it encompasses your entire being, both personal and professional.

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Posted in: articulable suspicion,constitutional law,criminal law,digital inspection,Fourth Amendment,Judge Bernard Friedman,law enforcement,probable cause

California's Same-Sex Marriage Ban Grinds Along in the Ninth Circuit

This Law Blog has been tracking the same-sex marriage case out of California.  We covered Perry vs Schwarzenegger in an earlier post detailing the players and the issue framed in the constitutional law suit that originated in a federal court in San Fransisco.

Since our last post on this topic, the trial court judge issued a lengthily opinion last August, ruling that California’s Proposition 8 was unconstitutional, enjoining further enforcement.  Proponents of the marriage ban appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has stayed the trial court ruling, however,  while the appeal is pending.  Recently, televised oral arguments were conducted on the case before a 3-judge appellate panel.  


Federal appellate arguments are rarely, if ever, televised; testament to the national interest in the case.

The federal appellate court appears to be trying to figure out what, exactly, should be the scope of their ruling.  Most federal judges, particularly appellate judges, eschew rulings that become broad constitutional pronouncements.

According to the SCOTUS analyst Lyle Denniston, the Ninth Circuit’s Perry panel seems likely to nullify the ban against same-sex marriage, “provided they could do so without having to write a sweeping opinion that established a national constitutional right of gay marriage.”

The initial arguments in the case before the Ninth Circuit concerned whether the appellants even had proper standing to appeal Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling.  California’s top government officials, the governor and the attorney general, have refused to defend Prop 8, or to appeal the trial court’s ruling.

At least one of the judges on the appellate panel was troubled that no state actors showed up to argue the case.  The appellate judge suggested that perhaps the issue could be posed to the California Supreme Court for a determination as to whether California law would allow any entity to stand in as a legal “proxy” for the suit.

Perry’s well-heeled lawyers stated in response to the suggestion that even if California law allowed a proxy-style legal fight, the proxy would be unable to demonstrate how they were harmed by lifting the ban against same-sex marriage.


Scholars of the appellate courts compare this case to the famous SCOTUS decision in Loving v Virginia, which struck down state laws banning marriage between African Americans and whites.  We wonder how the Loving case would have been decided if Mr. Loving's "bride" was a man instead of a woman.

This Perry case could be our chance to find out the 21st Century answer to that question.  As a decision from the appellate court is expected soon, perhaps by the end of the year, we must ask that you to stay tuned in on this case.

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Posted in: constitutional law,Judge Vaughn Walker,Lyle Denniston,Perry v Schwarzenegger,same-sex marriage,SCOTUS

Prison Overcrowding Case to Get Extended Argument at SCOTUS

Did you know that at any given moment, up to 2.3 million citizens are confined in our prisons in the United States?  Unfortunately, we lead the world in the incarceration industry.

This week, the Supreme Court will hear extended oral argument (80-minutes) in the case of Schwarzenegger v Plata.  You may recall that the governor of our largest state, Arnold Schwarzenegger, declared in 2006 that acute prison overcrowding had reached a crisis stage, "that gets worse with each passing day."

In California, there are approximately 160,000 men and women behind bars.  The prisons in that state are operating at 195% capacity meaning that two inmates occupy a space designed for one.

If petitioners are successful, a favorable ruling from the SCOTUS could release up to 40,000 inmates in California alone.

So far, the Prison Law Offices in Berkley, a non-profit organization specializing in prisoners' rights cases, sucessfully petitioned for convening a special three-judge District Court panel to assess the prisoners' claim under the Prisoner Litigation Relief Act.  Once convened, the prisoners' lawyers next convinced that panel to find that all conditions for a prisoner release order had been met.

The three-judge panel (not an appellate court, mind you) then ruled that the prison population must be reduced (significantly) over a two-year period.  This order, along with some complex jurisdictional issues, will be argued at SCOTUS this week.

One of the core issues is whether the admittedly overcrowded conditions in the California prisons affect the inmates' constitutional rights.  This approach is distinct from your basic habeas corpus petition and could result in a landmark prisoners' rights case.   

Among several other arguments, California asserts that it is simply not equipped to cut loose tens of thousands of convicted felons into its collapsing economy.  It does appear there is no good solution to this knotty problem.

Our laws become meaningless unless enforced.  Violent offenders must be punished to deter other violent crimes.  At what point, however, do we become a nation behind bars?

Michigan Connection:  Attorney General Mike Cox has joined several other states in filing an amicus brief in favor of rescinding the prisoner release order.

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Posted in: Attorney General Mike Cox,constitutional law,convicted convicts,criminal defense,habeas corpus,prison,prisoners,Schwarzenegger,SCOTUS