tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2559248812814916824.post5267902100254794876..comments2023-06-25T02:34:41.228-07:00Comments on Chicago Criminal Law Blog: Chicago Criminal lawyer comments on the 1st Amendment's protection of crush and dog fighting videosLaw Office of Ava George Stewart, P.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08758652943743206299noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2559248812814916824.post-43951598482195860972010-04-23T10:54:28.551-07:002010-04-23T10:54:28.551-07:00I don't like animals being crushed or tortured...I don't like animals being crushed or tortured, killed and exploited for profit, but I think all the majority Court was trying to do was to restrain itself from legislating, because the statute was very overbroad and not narrowly tailored to fit the State's specific interest in prohibiting only crush/dogfight videos. If the Court were to only decide the case as-applied and not address the constitutionality of the statute facially, they'd run the risk of having to keep dealing with as-applied challenges. And people whose videos of hunting, etc. wouldn't know whether or not the statute applied to them. This way, they knock it out entirely, and hope that Congress steps in quickly to fix it to address specific problems so it can withstand strict scrutiny. Hopefully, we don't have too much of a time gap for any video industry to really take off. <br /><br />However, I think one thing the Court could have done was to interpret the statute narrowly even though the words say otherwise (and include other activities broadly). That's one canon of statutory construction -- to avoid ruling the entire statute unconstitutional. But that's more legislating than the Court probably wanted to do. Its decision might encourage Congress to get it right next time.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com