Opinion ID: 3036769
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Banning full categories of speech is

Text: an accepted approach in First Amendment law and is therefore appropriate in this instance. Id. at 763-64. Amy Adler, Inverting the First Amendment, 149 U. PA. L. REV. 921, 938 n.77 (2001); see also Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. at 249–50 (focusing on factor number two in striking down part of an anti-child pornography federal statute that criminalized pornographic images made with virtual (computer-generated) children or adults dressed to look like children). 17 Without guidance from the Supreme Court, a lower federal court should hesitate before extending the logic of Ferber to other types of speech. The reasoning that supports Ferber has never been used to create whole categories of unprotected speech outside of the child pornography context. Furthermore, Ferber appears to be on the margin of the Supreme Court’s unprotected speech jurisprudence. Adler, supra, at 936 (noting that, aside from child pornography, “when the Court eliminates a category of expression from constitutional protection, it carefully defines the speech that can be banned; the definition then serves as a limit on legislative enactments”). Part of what locates child pornography on the margin as an unprotected speech category is the conflation of the underlying act with its depiction. By criminalizing the depiction itself, “[c]hild pornography law has collapsed the ‘speech/action’ distinction that occupies a central role in First Amendment law[,]” and “is the only place in First Amendment law where the Supreme Court has accepted the idea that we can constitutionally criminalize the depiction of a crime.” Id. at 970, 984; see Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103, 144 n.18 (1990) (Brennan, J., dissenting). Child pornography contrasts with other categories of unprotected speech that share a much closer nexus between speech and an unlawful action that proximately results from the unprotected speech. See, e.g., Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) (addressing speech that imminently incites illegal activity). For these reasons, we are unwilling to extend the rationale of Ferber beyond the regulation of child pornography without express direction from the Supreme Court. 18 Even assuming that Ferber may, in limited circumstances and without Supreme Court guidance, be applied to other categories of speech, 18 U.S.C. § 48 does not qualify for such treatment. The Court cited five bases in Ferber for upholding the anti-child pornography law. That reasoning does not translate well to the animal cruelty realm. We address the fivefactor rationale in its entirety, although the first factor is the most important because, under Ferber, if the Government’s interest is not compelling, then this type of statute necessarily violates the First Amendment. 1. First Ferber Factor The compelling government interest inquiry at issue here overlaps with the strict scrutiny analysis discussed presently. No matter how appealing the cause of animal protection is to our sensibilities, we hesitate–in the First Amendment context–to elevate it to the status of a compelling interest. Three reasons give us pause to conclude that “preventing cruelty to animals” rises to a compelling government interest that trumps an individual’s free speech rights. First, the Supreme Court has suggested that the kind of government interest at issue in § 48 is not compelling. See Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993). The Supreme Court in Lukumi held that city ordinances that outlawed animal sacrifices could not be upheld based on the city’s assertion that protecting animals was a compelling 19 government interest. Id. at 546–47. The Government contends that Lukumi is inapplicable to a compelling government interest analysis. Although that case dealt with the Free Exercise Clause rather than the Free Speech Clause, and was limited by the Court to the context of the particular ordinances at issue, it remains instructive. The possible relevance of Lukumi was noted under the “Dissenting Views” section of the House Report of § 48: Although the Supreme court [sic] recognized the governmental interest in protecting animals from cruelty, as against the constitutional right of free exercise of religion[,] the governmental interest did not prevail. Therefore, it seems that, on balance, animal rights do not supersede fundamental human rights. Here, while Government can and does protect animals from acts of cruelty, to make possession of films of such acts illegal would infringe upon the free speech rights of those possessing the films. H.R. REP. NO. 106-397, at 11. When we consider Lukumi along with the fact that the Supreme Court has not expanded the extremely limited number of unprotected speech categories in a generation, the only conclusion we are left with is that we—as a lower federal court—should not create a new category when 20 the Supreme Court has hinted at its hesitancy to do so on this same topic. Second, while the Supreme Court has not always been crystal clear as to what constitutes a compelling interest in free speech cases, it rarely finds such an interest for content-based restrictions. When it has done so, the interest has–without exception–related to the well-being of human beings, not animals. When looking at these cases, as well as the interests at issue in the unprotected speech categories, it is difficult to see how § 48 serves a compelling interest that represents “a government objective of surpassing importance.” Ferber, 458 U.S. at 757. The Supreme Court has suggested that a state interest in avoiding an Establishment clause violation may be compelling, although that remains an unsettled question of law. Compare Capitol Square Review & Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753, 761–62 (1995) (“compliance with the Establishment Clause is a state interest sufficiently compelling to justify content-based restrictions on speech.”) with Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98, 112–13 (2001) (“We have said that a state interest in avoiding an Establishment Clause violation ‘may be characterized as compelling,’ and therefore may justify content-based discrimination. However, it is not clear whether a State's interest in avoiding an Establishment Clause violation would justify viewpoint discrimination.”) (citations omitted). The Government also “has a compelling interest in ensuring that 21 victims of crime are compensated by those who harm them” and “ensuring that criminals do not profit from their crimes.” Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of the N.Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105, 118–19 (1991). But see McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 348–49 (1995); Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 322–25 (1988); Ark. Writers’ Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U.S. 221, 230–32 (1987). Similarly important human interests are at issue in constitutionally valid statutes regulating fighting words, threats, speech that imminently incites illegal activity, and obscenity. In Ferber, the Court illustrated the type of interest that must be at stake in order for it to be compelling. The Court stated, “[i]t is evident beyond the need for elaboration that a State’s interest in safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of a minor is compelling” because “[a] democratic society rests, for its continuance, upon the healthy, well-rounded growth of young people into full maturity as citizens.” Ferber, 458 U.S. at 756–57 (quotations and citations omitted); see also Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. at 244 (“The sexual abuse of a child is a most serious crime and an act repugnant to the moral instincts of a decent people.”); Eugene Volokh, Freedom of Speech, Permissible Tailoring and Transcending Strict Scrutiny, 144 U. PA. L. REV. 2417, 2420–21 (1996) (discussing other legitimate compelling government interests). Nothing in these cases suggests that a statute that restricts an individual’s free speech rights in favor of protecting an animal is compelling. Similarly, and even more fatal to the Government’s 22 position, because the statute does not regulate the underlying act of animal cruelty–which must be a crime under state or federal law in order to trigger § 48–we can see no persuasive argument that such a statute serves a compelling government interest. While the statute at issue in Ferber also prohibited the distribution of the depiction of sexual performances by children under the age of 16, 458 U.S. at 749, the Supreme Court went to great lengths to cabin its discussion of the depiction/act conflation because of the special role that children play in our society.7 Preventing cruelty to animals, although an exceedingly worthy goal, simply does not implicate interests of the same magnitude as protecting children from physical and psychological harm. 7 See Ferber, 458 U.S. at 756–57; id. at 758 (stating that “the use of children as subjects of pornographic materials is harmful to the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the child”); id. at 776 (Brennan, J., concurring in the judgment) (“This special and compelling interest [in protecting the well being of children], and the particular vulnerability of children, afford the State the leeway to regulate pornographic material, the promotion of which is harmful to children, even though the State does not have such leeway when it seeks only to protect consenting adults from exposure to such material.”); id. at 777–78 (Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment) (“The character of the State’s interest in protecting children from sexual abuse justifies the imposition of criminal sanctions against those who profit, directly or indirectly, from the promotion of such films.”). 23 Third, there is not a sufficient link between § 48 and the interest in “preventing cruelty to animals.” As the Government recognizes, Congress and the states already have in place comprehensive statutory schemes to protect animals from mistreatment. The Government states that “all fifty states have enacted laws which criminalize the infliction of cruelty on animals. This includes laws which outlaw dog fighting in all 50 states.” Gov’t Br. 32. These statutes are materially different from § 48. Section 48 does nothing to regulate the underlying conduct that is already illegal under state laws. Rather, it regulates only the depiction of the conduct. In order to serve the purported compelling government interest of preventing animal cruelty, the regulation of these depictions must somehow aid in the prevention of cruelty to animals. With this depiction/act distinction in mind, it seems appropriate to recast the compelling government interest as “preventing cruelty to animals that state and federal statutes directly regulating animal cruelty under-enforce.” See Ashcroft v. ACLU, 542 U.S. 656, 683 (2004) (Breyer, J., dissenting) (noting that “the question here is whether the Act, given its restrictions. . ., significantly advances that [compelling] interest”). The House Committee Report for § 48 stated that the statute targeted the depiction rather than the act because underenforcement of state animal cruelty laws is a particular problem in the crush video industry. H.R. REP. NO. 106-397, at 3. The 24 Report approvingly cited witnesses who testified to this effect.8 8 As the House Committee Report stated: The witnesses testified that 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. As a result, defendants arrested for violating a State cruelty to animals statute in connection with the production and sale of these materials in that State 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 the State statute of limitations. While all States have some form of a cruelty to animal statute, none have a statute that prohibits the sale of depictions of such cruelty. Accordingly, according to the witnesses, only if the person making these depictions were caught in the act (often through some type of undercover operation) could the State’s laws be brought to bear on their actions, and then only for the cruelty itself, not for the production and sale of the depictions. H.R. REP. NO. 106-397, at 3. Perhaps wary of the federalism implications of § 48, the House Committee Report made sure to state that “[t]he statute is intended to augment, not supplant, 25 Consistent with these findings, the Government states that “as a practical matter, it is nearly impossible to identify the persons involved in the acts of cruelty or the place where the acts occurred.” Gov’t Br. 32. While this justification is plausible for crush videos, it is meaningless when evaluating § 48 as written. By its terms, the statute applies without regard to whether the identities of individuals in a depiction, or the location of a depiction’s production, are obscured. The Government also argues that § 48 indirectly serves to deter future animal cruelty and other antisocial behavior by discouraging individuals from becoming desensitized to animal violence. As support for its position, the Government approvingly cited the House Committee Report, which cited research that “suggest[ed] that violent acts committed by humans may be the result of a long pattern of perpetrating abuse, which ‘often begins with the torture and killing of animals.’” Gov’t Br. 31–32 (citing H.R. REP. NO. 106-397, at 4 [sic]). The full quote is as follows: The committee also notes the increasing body of research which suggests that humans who kill or abuse others often do so as the culmination of a long pattern of abuse, which often begins with the State animal cruelty laws by addressing behavior that may be outside the jurisdiction of the States, as a matter of law, and appears often beyond the reach of their law enforcement officials, as a practical matter.” Id. 26 torture and killing of animals. When society fails to prevent these persons from inflicting harm upon animals as children, they may fail to learn respect for any living being. If society fails to prevent adults from engaging in this behavior, they may become so desensitized to the suffering of these beings that they lose the ability to empathize with the suffering of humans. H.R. REP. NO. 106-397, at 4. We read this passage to mean that, by broadly prohibiting these depictions of animal cruelty, the drafters of the House Committee Report believed that fewer individuals will see and make such depictions and therefore not be subject to this desensitization. This reasoning is insufficient to override First Amendment protections for content-based speech restrictions. The Supreme Court has rejected a similar argument in the context of virtual child pornography, stating that “[w]hile the Government asserts that the images can lead to actual instances of child abuse, the causal link is contingent and indirect. The harm does not necessarily follow from the speech, but depends upon some unquantified potential for subsequent criminal acts.” Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. at 250 (internal citation omitted). When balanced against First Amendment rights, the “mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it.” Id. at 253. The Supreme Court cannot speak more clearly than it has on this issue: “The prospect of crime . . . by itself does not justify laws 27 suppressing protected speech.” Id. at 245. Similarly, general references to speech repugnant to public mores cannot serve as a compelling government interest sufficient to override constitutional protections of speech. See, e.g., United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310, 319 (1990) (“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”) (citing Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 414 (1989)); United States v. Playboy Entm’t Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 826 (2000)). For these reasons, we fail to see how 18 U.S.C. § 48 serves a compelling government interest. 2. Second Ferber Factor The second factor in the Ferber rationale, that child pornography is “intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of children,” Ferber, 458 U.S. at 759, is a similarly weak position for the Government to rely upon in this case. In Ferber, the Court reasoned that child pornography should be banned, in part, because the pornographic material continues to harm the children involved even after the abuse has taken place. While animals are sentient creatures worthy of human kindness and human care, one cannot seriously contend that the animals themselves suffer continuing harm by having their images out in the marketplace. Where children can be harmed simply by 28 knowing that their images are available or by seeing the images themselves, animals are not capable of such awareness. Put differently, when an animal suffers an act of cruelty that is captured on film (or by some other medium of depiction or communication), the fact that the act of cruelty was captured on film in no way exacerbates or prolongs the harm suffered by that animal. 3. Third Ferber Factor Both the second and third Ferber factors assert that the distribution network for child pornography must be closed so that the production of child pornography will decrease.9 This drying-up-the-market theory, based on decreasing production, is potentially apt in the animal cruelty context. However, there is no empirical evidence in the record to confirm that the theory is valid in this circumstance. See Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514, 531 n.17 (2001); see also Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. at 250–51 (apparently questioning the independent value of Ferber’s drying-up-the-market rationale); Eugene Volokh, Speech as Conduct: Generally Applicable Laws, Illegal Courses of Conduct, “Situation-Altering Utterances,” and the Uncharged Zones, 90 CORNELL L. REV. 9 The third Ferber factor specifically states that “[t]he advertising and selling of child pornography provide an economic motive for and are thus an integral part of the production” of child pornography. Ferber, 458 U.S. at 761. 29 1277, 1324–25 (2005). Indeed, the fact that most dog fights are conducted at live venues and produce significant gambling revenue suggests that the production of tapes such as those at issue in this case does not serve as the primary economic motive for the underlying animal cruelty the Government purports to target.10 Moreover, standing alone this factor sweeps so broadly it should not be deployed to justify extracting an entire category of speech from First Amendment protections. Restriction of the depiction of almost any activity can work to dry up, or at least restrain, the activity’s market. 4. Fourth Ferber Factor The fourth Ferber factor is that the value of the prohibited speech is “exceedingly modest, if not de minimis.”11 458 U.S. at 762; see also Chaplinsky, 315 U.S. at 572. The Government finds support for the low value of the speech restricted by the Act by pointing to the exceptions clause of 18 10 To that end, a Dogfighting Fact Sheet prepared by the Humane Society of the United States, which filed an Amicus Brief in this case, states that “[s]pectators provide much of the profit associated with dogfighting. The money generated by admission fees and gambling helps keep this ‘sport’ alive.” The Humane Society of the United States Dogfighting Fact Sheet, http://www.hsus.org/hsus_field/animal_fighting_the_final_ro und/dogfighting_fact_sheet/ (last visited May 9, 2008). 11 As to the fifth Ferber factor, it is discussed throughout this opinion. 30 U.S.C. § 48(b). Section (b) states that the Act “does not apply to any depiction that has serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value.” The House Committee Report viewed these categories as broad.12 Still, just how broad these categories actually are is subject to debate because most of the legislative history focuses on the depiction of animal cruelty for prurient purposes in so-called crush videos.13 12 See H.R. REP. NO. 106-397, at 4 (“While the exclusion described in the statute is expressed in seven different categories, the committee believes that any material depicting animal cruelty which society would find to be of at least some minimal value, falls within one of these broad, general categories.”). 13 One further point of clarification should be mentioned in reference to the section (b) defense. The parties in this case agree that the Government must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the speech contains no serious value. In contrast, the legislative history of the statute specifically states that “[t]he defendant bears the burden of proving the value of the material by a preponderance of the evidence.” See H.R. REP. No. 106397, at 8. Because Stevens brings a facial challenge to the statute and there is a chance that prosecutors in the future will frame the exceptions clause as an affirmative defense, we take this opportunity to sound an alarm. In the free speech context, using an affirmative defense to save an otherwise unconstitutional statute presents troubling issues. “The Government raises serious constitutional difficulties by seeking to impose on the defendant the burden of proving his speech is 31 The exceptions clause cannot on its own constitutionalize § 48. The exceptions clause in this case is a variation of the third prong of the Miller obscenity test. This prong asks “whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973); see also Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. at 246–47. As one scholar has stated, “[i]t has long been a principle of adult obscenity law that no matter how shocking or how offensive a sexually explicit work might otherwise be, it should be protected speech if it demonstrates serious artistic value.” Adler, supra, at 967. The role of the clause in Miller cannot be divorced from the first two parts of the obscenity test, which emphasize patent offensiveness and an appeal to the prurient interest. This type of exceptions clause has not been applied in non-prurient unprotected speech cases, and taking it out of this context ignores the essential framework of the Miller test. Congress and the Government would have the statute operate in such a way as to permit the restriction of otherwise not unlawful. An affirmative defense applies only after prosecution has begun, and the speaker must himself prove, on pain of a felony conviction, that his conduct falls within the affirmative defense.” Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. at 255. Viewing the exceptions clause as an affirmative defense poses an even greater threat to chill constitutional speech than the interpretation of § 48 offered by the Government in this case. 32 constitutional speech so long as part of the statute allows for an exception for speech that has “serious value.” The problem with this view is twofold. First, outside of patently offensive speech that appeals to the prurient interest, the First Amendment does not require speech to have serious value in order for it to fall under the First Amendment umbrella. What this view overlooks is the great spectrum between speech utterly without social value and high value speech. Second, if the mere appendage of an exceptions clause serves to constitutionalize § 48, it is difficult to imagine what category of speech the Government could not regulate through similar statutory engineering. That is not a road down which this Court is willing to proceed. In sum, the speech restricted by 18 U.S.C. § 48 is protected by the First Amendment. The attempted analogy to Ferber fails because of the inherent differences between children and animals. Those profound differences require no further explication here.