JUSTICES TO RULE ON LAW BANNING THE DEPICTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

Washington — It has been more than a quarter century since the Supreme Court last recognized a new category of speech with so little value that it did not deserve the protections of the First Amendment. On Monday, the court agreed to decide whether depictions of cruelty to animals should join obscenity and fighting words as speech unworthy of constitutional protection.



The new case arose from the conviction of Robert J. Stevens, a Virginia man sentenced to 37 months in prison for selling videos of pit bulls fighting each other and attacking other animals. A 1999 federal law makes it a crime to create or sell such videos and other depictions of cruelty to animals.



All 50 states ban the cruelty itself. The federal law is aimed solely at depictions of it.


more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/us/21scotus.html?ref=us