Opinion ID: 796061
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Constitutionality of the SEVGL's Sale and Rental Provisons

Text: 16 The plaintiffs argue that the sale and rental provisions of the SEVGL facially violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. As the State concedes, the SEVGL is a content-based restriction on speech, and we must employ strict scrutiny in assessing its constitutionality. 6 See United States v. Playboy Entm't. Group, 529 U.S. 803, 813, 120 S.Ct. 1878, 146 L.Ed.2d 865 (2000); FCC v. Pacifica, 438 U.S. 726, 751, 98 S.Ct. 3026, 57 L.Ed.2d 1073 (1978). To survive strict scrutiny, the SEVGL must be narrowly tailored to promote a compelling Government interest. Playboy, 529 U.S. at 811, 120 S.Ct. 1878. Generally, a statute is narrowly tailored only if it targets and eliminates no more than the exact source of the `evil' it seeks to remedy. See Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 804, 109 S.Ct. 2746, 105 L.Ed.2d 661 (1989) (quoting Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 485, 108 S.Ct. 2495, 101 L.Ed.2d 420 (1988)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Put another way, a statute is not narrowly tailored if a less restrictive alternative would serve the Government's purpose. See Playboy, 529 U.S. at 813, 120 S.Ct. 1878. We must assure that the State does not burn the house to roast the pig. See Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380, 383, 77 S.Ct. 524, 1 L.Ed.2d 412 (1957) (Frankfurter, J.). 17 Here, the State's identified purpose is shielding children from indecent sexual material and in assisting parents in protecting their children from that material. Governor's Br. at 16. We need not spend time determining whether this is a compelling interest; it clearly is. 7 See Ashcroft v. ACLU, 542 U.S. 656, 675, 124 S.Ct. 2783, 159 L.Ed.2d 690 (2004) (To be sure, our cases have recognized a compelling interest in protecting minors from exposure to sexually explicit materials.); Sable Commc'ns of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126, 109 S.Ct. 2829, 106 L.Ed.2d 93 (1989) (We have recognized that there is a compelling interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of minors.). The burden is on the State to demonstrate that the SEVGL is narrowly tailored to achieving this purpose. See Weinberg v. City of Chicago, 310 F.3d 1029, 1038 (7th Cir.2002). One line from the Governor's brief encapsulates the State's narrow tailoring argument: The SEVGL is narrowly tailored because its effect is perfectly drawn to impact only the subject group—minors—while leaving fully intact the First Amendment rights of adults. 18 We think it important first to reaffirm our observation in American Amusement Machine Association v. Kendrick, 8 244 F.3d 572, 576 (7th Cir.2001), that [c]hildren have First Amendment Rights. The implication of this observation is that our narrow tailoring inquiry must be broader than the question of whether adults will be affected by the challenged legislation. The Constitution also requires us to ask whether legislation unduly burdens the First Amendment rights of minors. And for good reason—as we observed in AAMA, history has shown the dangers of giving too much censorship power to the State over materials intended for young persons. See AAMA, 244 F.3d at 577 (The murderous fanaticism displayed by young German soldiers in World War II, alumni of the Hitler Jugend, illustrates the danger of allowing government to control the access of children to information and opinion.); see also Cinecom Theaters Midwest States v. City of Ft. Wayne, 473 F.2d 1297, 1302 (7th Cir.1973) ([A] city may not, consonant with the First Amendment, go beyond the limitations inherent in the concept of variable obscenity in regulating the dissemination to juveniles of `objectionable' material.). 19 In AAMA, we concluded that the plaintiffs were entitled to a preliminary injunction against a city ordinance that restricted minors' access to violent video games because the city had failed to demonstrate a compelling interest. AAMA, 244 F.3d at 575-76. Here, the inquiry is different because violence and obscenity are distinct categories of objectionable depiction, subject to different constitutional inquiries. Id. at 574. But the central holding of AAMA is an important backdrop for this case. The State must recognize that the question of a statute's compliance with the First Amendment does not end once it is determined that the free speech rights of adults are unaffected. 20 None of the parties allege that the games affected by the SEVGL are obscene, as that term is understood in the parlance of constitutional law; the State rather contends that the games are indecent and subject to appropriate legislation limiting their distribution to minors. As in Playboy, it is undisputed that the State has no power to limit the sale of the games in question to adults. See Playboy, 529 U.S. at 811, 120 S.Ct. 1878. But the Supreme Court has determined that, because of its strong and abiding interest in youth, a State may regulate the dissemination to juveniles of, and their access to, material objectionable as to them, but which a State clearly could not regulate as to adults. Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 390 U.S. 676, 690, 88 S.Ct. 1298, 20 L.Ed.2d 225 (1968). Thus, the State may regulate sexual material that is indecent with respect to minors, even if such material is not obscene under the Court's formulation for adults, if the State can demonstrate that the regulation in question is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. See Sable, 492 U.S. at 126, 109 S.Ct. 2829 (The Government may, however, regulate the content of constitutionally protected speech in order to promote a compelling interest if it chooses the least restrictive means.). 21 In Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 632-33, 88 S.Ct. 1274, 20 L.Ed.2d 195 (1968), the Court began to define the boundaries of the State's ability to regulate material intended for minors, as it upheld a New York statute that criminalized the sale of certain obscene materials to persons under the age of seventeen. The language of the statute upheld in Ginsberg made distribution criminal if the material (i) predominantly appeal[ed] to the prurient, shameful or morbid interest of minors, and (ii) [wa]s patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors, and (iii) [wa]s utterly without redeeming social importance for minors. Id. The Court concluded that the protection of children's psychological health was a permissible basis for restricting minors' access to non-obscene, sexually-oriented material. Id. at 633, 88 S.Ct. 1274. 22 Five years after Ginsberg, the Court revisited the question of the appropriate obscenity standard with regard to material for adults. The Court held that a state's ability to criminalize the distribution of obscene materials only extends to those which taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. See Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973). 9 In so ruling, the Court explicitly rejected and replaced the utterly without redeeming social importance formulation that had first been articulated in Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413, 86 S.Ct. 975, 16 L.Ed.2d 1 (1966). The Memoirs Court had articulated two other prongs to its definition of obscenity—material was obscene if (a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex; [and] (b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters.... Id. at 418, 86 S.Ct. 975. As is obvious, the statute upheld in Ginsberg succeeded by appropriating the exact language of Memoirs and appending the words for minors to each prong of the test. Seemingly implicit then in the Miller Court's amendment of the Memoirs test was that the test of obscenity for minors, or indecency, was amended to include the requirement that the material regulated taken as a whole, do[es] not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors. See Miller, 413 U.S. at 24, 93 S.Ct. 2607. 23 But the Court has not made it so clear—none of its subsequent decisions have explicitly stated that Miller's amendment of the Memoirs test also affected Ginsberg. See Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 767, 98 S.Ct. 3026 (It is true that the obscenity standard the Ginsberg Court adopted for such materials was based on the then-applicable obscenity standard of Roth ... and Memoirs ... and that `[w]e have not had occasion to decide what effect Miller ... will have on the Ginsberg formulation.') (Brennan, J., dissenting) (quoting Erznoznik, infra ); Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 214 n. 10, 95 S.Ct. 2268, 45 L.Ed.2d 125 (1975) (In Miller ... we abandoned the Roth-Memoirs test for judging obscenity with respect to adults. We have not had occasion to decide what effect Miller will have on the Ginsberg formulation.); see also ACLU v. Ashcroft, 322 F.3d 240, 246 (3d Cir.2003) (explaining that the legislative history of the Child Online Protection Act reveals that the Act's definition of the harmful to minors test constitutes an attempt to fuse the standards upheld by the Supreme Court in Ginsberg ... and Miller ) (internal quotation marks omitted), aff'd, 542 U.S. 656, 124 S.Ct. 2783, 159 L.Ed.2d 690 (2004); cf. Virginia v. Am. Booksellers Ass'n, 484 U.S. 383, 387, 108 S.Ct. 636, 98 L.Ed.2d 782 (1988) (declining to invalidate a Virginia statute that included a harmful to minors definition that was a modification of the Miller definition of obscenity, adapted for juveniles and certifying question of reach of statute to Virginia Supreme Court). 24 It ultimately does not matter. Either Ginsberg or Miller provides us with the third prong in an appropriate standard for what material can be regulated in the manner of the SEVGL. That is to say, somewhere between Ginsberg and Miller we arrive at the basement for constitutionality of a statute criminalizing the distribution of sexually oriented materials to minors. Inexplicably, the State of Illinois chose to ignore both Ginsberg's and Miller's third prongs in creating the SEVGL's definition of sexually explicit. The State thereby simultaneously failed to narrowly tailor the statute and created a statute that is unconstitutionally overbroad. See Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 114, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972) (A clear and precise enactment may nevertheless be `overbroad' if in its reach it prohibits constitutionally protected conduct.). 25 The SEVGL's sexually explicit definition is evidently modeled after the first two prongs of the Ginsberg/Miller test, but includes neither the utterly without redeeming social importance for minors language of Ginsberg or the taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value language of Miller. After Miller, a number of statutes have been found unconstitutional that included the Miller language or some hybrid of Miller and Ginsberg. See, e.g., Ashcroft v. ACLU, 542 U.S. 656, 662, 673, 124 S.Ct. 2783, 159 L.Ed.2d 690 (2004) (finding federal statute that included language taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors insufficiently narrowly tailored because less restrictive alternatives were available); see also Entm't Software Ass'n v. Granholm, 404 F.Supp.2d 978, 981 (E.D.Mich.2005) (imposing preliminary injunction against statute that included language [c]onsidered as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, education, or scientific value for minors in its definition of implicated content because statute was unlikely to survive strict scrutiny). But we are aware of no criminal statutes that have been found to be narrowly tailored in this context that did not at least attempt to include some version of the third prong. 10 Cf. Ashcroft, 542 U.S. at 679, 124 S.Ct. 2783 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (describing the words lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as critical terms). 26 Importantly, in failing to consider Miller, the drafters of the SEVGL also neglected to include a requirement that any work in question be considered as a whole in determining whether a defendant should be subject to criminal penalties. While the Court has yet to explicitly fuse Miller and Ginsberg, it seems clear to us that in so amending the adult test for obscenity, the Court also intended to require that the work be considered as a whole in the context of statutes applicable to juveniles. See Miller, 413 U.S. at 24, 93 S.Ct. 2607. As Judge Kennelly correctly observed, this deficiency, combined with the SEVGL's lack of the third Ginsberg/Miller prong, makes likely the prospect of criminal prosecutions for the sale of games that are beyond the scope of the State's compelling interest—games that have social importance for minors. Cf. Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 865-66, 117 S.Ct. 2329, 138 L.Ed.2d 874 (1997). 27 The game God of War, discussed above and cited by the district court, is illustrative of this point. Because the SEVGL potentially criminalizes the sale of any game that features exposed breasts, without concern for the game considered in its entirety or for the game's social value for minors, distribution of God of War is potentially illegal, in spite of the fact that the game tracks the Homeric epics in content and theme. As we have suggested in the past, there is serious reason to believe that a statute sweeps too broadly when it prohibits a game that is essentially an interactive, digital version of the Odyssey. Cf. AAMA, 244 F.3d at 577 (No doubt the City would concede this point if the question were whether to forbid children to read without the presence of an adult the Odyssey, with its graphic descriptions of Odysseus's grinding out the eye of Polyphemus with a heated, sharpened stake ...). Similarly, it seems unlikely that a statute is narrowly tailored to achieving the stated compelling interest when it potentially criminalizes distribution of works featuring only brief flashes of nudity. See Erznoznik, 422 U.S. at 214 n. 10, 95 S.Ct. 2268 (It is clear, however, that under any test of obscenity as to minors not all nudity would be proscribed. Rather, to be obscene `such expression must be, in some significant way, erotic.') (quoting Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 20, 91 S.Ct. 1780, 29 L.Ed.2d 284 (1971)). 28 The possibility of such prosecution is far from illusory. Illinois has created a statute which allows prosecution in any of its counties solely on the basis of contemporary community standards with regard to the lasciviousness of any depiction of post-pubescent female breasts. 720 ILCS 5/12B-10(e). While Miller reaffirmed the contemporary community standards test, the entire point of the Miller third prong is to free individuals from the possibility of prosecution solely on the basis of widely divergent local standards. See Ashcroft, 535 U.S. at 579, 122 S.Ct. 1700 ([T]he serious value requirement `allows appellate courts to impose some limitations and regularity on the definition by setting, as a matter of law, a national floor for socially redeeming value.') (quoting Reno, 521 U.S. at 873, 117 S.Ct. 2329). Indeed, in Reno, the Supreme Court concluded that a significant deficiency of the Communications Decency Act was its failure to include the third Miller prong. See Reno, 521 U.S. at 873, 117 S.Ct. 2329 (finding the Miller third prong particularly important because, unlike the `patently offensive' and `prurient interest' criteria, it is not judged by contemporary community standards). 11 29 These deficiencies are sufficient for this court to conclude that the statute is not narrowly tailored and is overbroad. It is unnecessary for the State to ban access to material that has serious social value for minors to achieve its stated purpose. 30 But even if we found no inherent problems in the SEVGL's sexually explicit definition, the statute could still not survive strict scrutiny because the plaintiffs have identified other less restrictive alternatives to the SEVGL. Most obviously, the State could have simply passed legislation increasing awareness among parents of the voluntary ESRB ratings system. Cf. 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island, 517 U.S. 484, 507, 116 S.Ct. 1495, 134 L.Ed.2d 711 (1996) (It is perfectly obvious that alternative forms of regulation that would not involve any restriction on speech would be more likely to achieve the State's goal of promoting temperance .... educational campaigns focused on the problems of excessive, or even moderate, drinking might prove to be more effective.); Linmark Assocs., Inc. v. Willingboro Twp., 431 U.S. 85, 97, 97 S.Ct. 1614, 52 L.Ed.2d 155 (1977) (suggesting that municipality, as an alternative to speech restrictions, continue `the process of education' it has already begun through municipality-sponsored speech targeted at raising awareness of municipality's views on the local housing market). 31 The Supreme Court has indicated that [w]hen plaintiffs challenge a content-based speech restriction, the burden is on the Government to prove that the proposed alternatives will not be as effective as the challenged statute. Ashcroft, 542 U.S. at 665, 124 S.Ct. 2783. The Government has not met this burden with regard to this proposal. The district court relied on evidence introduced at trial that, under the current voluntary ratings regime, parents are involved in eighty-three percent of video game purchases for minors. The State has not pointed to evidence to the contrary. If Illinois passed legislation which increased awareness of the ESRB system, perhaps through a wide media campaign, the already-high rate of parental involvement could only rise. Nothing in the record convinces us that this proposal would not be at least as effective as the proposed speech restrictions. In short, the SEVGL is overbroad, it is not narrowly tailored, and it cannot survive strict scrutiny. 12 32