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Page Number: 10

6 

UNITED STATES v. STEVENS 

Opinion of the Court 

(1969)  (per  curiam),  and  speech  integral  to  criminal  con-
duct, Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U. S. 490, 
498 (1949)—are “well-defined and narrowly limited classes
of  speech,  the  prevention  and  punishment  of  which  have
never  been  thought  to  raise  any  Constitutional  problem.” 
Chaplinsky  v.  New  Hampshire,  315  U. S.  568,  571–572 
(1942).

The  Government  argues  that  “depictions  of  animal
cruelty”  should  be  added  to  the  list.    It  contends  that 
depictions  of  “illegal  acts  of  animal  cruelty”  that  are
“made, sold, or possessed for commercial gain” necessarily
“lack expressive value,” and may accordingly “be regulated 
as  unprotected  speech.”  Brief  for  United  States  10  (em-
phasis  added).  The  claim  is  not  just  that  Congress  may 
regulate  depictions  of  animal  cruelty  subject  to  the  First
Amendment,  but  that  these  depictions  are  outside  the
reach of that Amendment altogether—that they fall into a 
“ ‘First  Amendment  Free  Zone.’ ” 
Board  of  Airport 
Comm’rs  of  Los  Angeles  v.  Jews  for  Jesus,  Inc.,  482  U. S. 
569, 574 (1987).

As  the  Government  notes,  the  prohibition  of  animal 
cruelty itself has a long history in American law, starting
with the early settlement of the Colonies.  Reply Brief 12, 
n. 8; see, e.g., The Body of Liberties §92 (Mass. Bay Colony 
1641), reprinted in American Historical Documents 1000–
1904,  43  Harvard  Classics  66,  79  (C.  Eliot  ed.  1910)  (“No 
man  shall  exercise  any  Tirranny  or  Crueltie  towards  any 
bruite  Creature  which  are  usuallie  kept  for  man’s  use”). 
But  we  are  unaware  of  any  similar  tradition  excluding 
depictions  of  animal  cruelty  from  “the  freedom  of  speech” 
codified  in  the  First  Amendment,  and  the  Government 
points us to none.

The  Government  contends  that  “historical  evidence” 
about  the  reach  of  the  First  Amendment  is  not  “a  neces-
sary  prerequisite  for  regulation  today,”  Reply  Brief  12,
n. 8, and that categories of speech may be exempted from