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Chris Palmer, Peter Kimball
Michael Macor / The Chronicle
Friday, April 23, 2010

The question before the Supreme Court this year was whether films of such fights could be distributed under the rights of free speech, or whether graphic animal cruelty can be restricted.

As film producers, we appreciate the power of film to bring otherwise unseen images to the public, and we support - to an extent - filmmakers' artistic freedom. Nonetheless, this freedom comes with certain limitations. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal law Tuesday that outlawed the distribution of videos depicting graphic animal cruelty. In doing so, the court has gone too far in protecting the free speech of those who would profit from films depicting wanton and malicious cruelty to animals solely for customers' entertainment. We believe that these types of videos deserve no legal protection whatsoever.

The case in question, United States vs. Stevens, centered on Robert Stevens, a purveyor of the video series "Dogs of Velvet and Steel." Stevens produced and sold videos of pit bulls engaging in dogfights and viciously attacking other animals. These videos include graphic depictions of torture and brutality, including a pit bull mutilating the lower jaw of a live pig. In January 2005, Stevens was convicted of violating the Animal Cruelty Act (1999), which criminalized the trafficking of depictions of animal cruelty, except those with "serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value." A federal appeals court overturned Stevens' conviction and ruled that the animal cruelty law violated his First Amendment right to free speech. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling.

The fundamental question is this: Does the Animal Cruelty Act violate the First Amendment right of freedom of speech? Certainly, the right to free speech is one of the paramount freedoms in our society. Our country was founded on the principle that people should not be persecuted for voicing unpopular opinions. Naturally, in order to be effective, this freedom protects disturbing and offensive speech.

However, there are very specific types of speech that we, as a society, have deemed so despicable and so lacking in merit that they do not deserve protection, among them child pornography, obscenity, threats and incitement of violence. Animal cruelty should be one of these unprotected categories. As Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, wrote, "We wouldn't allow the sale of videos of actual child abuse or murder staged for the express purpose of selling videos of such criminal acts." There is no reason to ignore depictions of animal cruelty while rightfully criminalizing parallel depictions of child abuse.

The Supreme Court should have recognized that videos of dogfighting and animal mutilation - created not to educate or inform but merely to titillate - have no constitutional protection. As Justice Samuel Alito, the sole dissenter, argued, "The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, but it most certainly does not protect violent criminal conduct, even if engaged in for expressive purposes."

Videos of defenseless animals cruelly victimized to excite the violent and sexual fantasies of certain customers have no place in our society, regardless of the free speech claims of their producers. Any reasonable citizen - even a filmmaker - can tell you that.

Palmer is author of the forthcoming Sierra Club book "Shooting in the Wild" (April 2010) and is director of the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at American University in Washington, D.C. Kimball is the writer and director of the wildlife film "Badger Insurance: The Plight of the North American Badger."

This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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