UNITED STATES v. STEVENS

Legal Principle at Issue

Whether a federal statute criminalizing depictions of animal cruelty violated the First Amendment.

Action

The Supreme Court held that the federal statute was in violation of the First Amendment, agreeing with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Facts/Syllabus

In 1999, Congress passed a federal statute that banned any depictions in which “a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed.” The law was intended to target so-called “crush videos,” which feature the torture and killing of helpless animals and are said to appeal to persons with a specific sexual fetish.

Respondent Robert J. Stevens was indicted under the law for selling videos depicting dogfighting. He moved to dismiss, arguing the law is facially invalid under the First Amendment. The District Court denied his motion, and Stevens was convicted. The Third Circuit vacated the conviction and declared the law facially unconstitutional as a content-based regulation of protected speech.

Importance of Case

The Court both declined to create a new category of expression unprotected by the First Amendment and called the government’s argument that the First Amendment requires categorical balancing “startling and dangerous.” The Supreme Court held that the statute under which Stevens was convicted was “substantially overbroad, and therefore invalid under the First Amendment.”