Supreme Court declares violent video games are protected speech

"Reading Dante is unquestionably more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing Mortal Kombat. But these cultural and intellectual differences are not  constitutional ones."

-- Justice Scalia, writing for the Court today

In a 7-2 decision announced today, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a California law which sought to ban the sale or rental of violent video games to children.

California?s law defined a violent video game as one which depicts "killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being" and also matches either of the boxes below:

(1) a reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find that it appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors; (2) it is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors, and; (3) it causes the game, as a whole, to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.  

Or the game:

Enables the player to virtually inflict serious injury upon images of human beings or characters with substantially human characteristics in a manner which is especially heinous, cruel, or depraved in that it involves torture or serious physical abuse to the victim.

Factors determining whether that latter definition has been met "include infliction of gratuitous violence upon the victim beyond that necessary to commit the killing, needless mutilation of the victim?s body, and helplessness of the victim.?  The law required any such game imported into or distributed in California to ?be labeled with a solid white ?18? outlined in black" to appear on the front of the package and be ?no less than 2 inches by 2 inches? in size.  Persons selling or renting these games to minors would be subject to up to a $1000 civil penalty.

The law had never been enforced, having been blocked by courts since its signing by Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2005.  Last February, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down the law, and today the Supreme Court concurred in a broad 7-2 decision.  There is much goodness to read beyond the folk, including some Scalia on Thomas rhetorical smackdown akin to a Mortal Kombat fatality.  For reals. You'll want to read this one.

Justice Scalia, writing for himself and Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, first explains that video games are protected speech:

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/8luCJhluGRQ/-Supreme-Court-declares-violent-video-games-are-protected-speech

senate vote new politics texas congressman and senators political action committee