Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-769.pdf
Page Number: 35.0

Cite as:  559 U. S. ____ (2010) 

11 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

“[A]  kitten,  secured  to  the  ground,  watches  and 
shrieks  in  pain  as  a  woman  thrusts  her  high-heeled
shoe into its body, slams her heel into the kitten’s eye 
socket  and  mouth  loudly  fracturing  its  skull,  and 
stomps  repeatedly  on  the  animal’s  head.  The  kitten 
hemorrhages blood, screams blindly in pain, and is ul-
timately left dead in a moist pile of blood-soaked hair 
and bone.”  Brief for Humane Society of United States 
as  Amicus  Curiae  2  (hereinafter  Humane  Society 
Brief). 

It  is  undisputed  that  the  conduct  depicted  in  crush 
videos  may  constitutionally  be  prohibited.  All  50  States 
and the District of Columbia have enacted statutes prohib-
iting animal cruelty.  See 533 F. 3d, at 223, and n. 4 (citing 
statutes);  H. R.  Rep.,  at  3.  But  before  the  enactment  of 
§48,  the  underlying  conduct  depicted  in  crush  videos  was 
nearly impossible to prosecute.  These videos, which “ often 
appeal to persons with a very specific sexual fetish,” id., at 
2, were made in secret, generally without a live audience,
and  “the  faces  of  the  women  inflicting  the  torture  in  the
material  often  were  not  shown,  nor  could  the  location  of 
the place where the cruelty was being inflicted or the date 
of the activity be ascertained from the depiction.”  Id., at 3. 
Thus,  law  enforcement  authorities  often  were  not  able  to 
identify  the  parties  responsible  for  the  torture.    See  Pun-
ishing  Depictions  of  Animal  Cruelty  and  the  Federal 
Prisoner  Health  Care  Co-Payment  Act  of  1999:  Hearing 
before the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Commit-
tee  on  the  Judiciary,  106th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  p. 1  (1999) 
(hereinafter Hearing on Depictions of Animal Cruelty).  In 
the rare instances in which it was possible to identify and 
find the perpetrators, they “often were able to successfully 
assert  as  a  defense  that  the  State  could  not  prove  its
jurisdiction  over  the  place  where  the  act  occurred  or  that 
the actions depicted took place within the time specified in