On Friday, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down a California ban on the sale of violent video games to minors. The opinion, in Video Software Dealers Association v. Schwarzenegger, is available here. It’s a pretty quick read.
Towards the end of the opinion, the Court lays out the policy rationale behind its legal analysis:
In evaluating the State’s asserted interests, we must distinguish the State’s interest in protecting minors from actual psychological or
neurological harm from the State’s interest in controlling minors’
thoughts. The latter is not legitimate… Violence has always been and
remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even
obsessive theme of culture both high and low. It engages the interest
of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic
fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault is aware. To
shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent
descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.
Co-editor Alex just told me that we had 2,700 pageviews in January from 370 unique visitors. I’m astounded. Thanks for reading, folks!
But part of *why* I’m astounded is that with the dearth of comments, I didn’t think anybody was reading! But seriously, consider commenting too–I imagine most of y’all are lawyers (am I wrong? tell me!), and I imagine you probably have opinions about what we post here. Share, please share!
And for those who are CPCS attorneys, remember that you are always welcome to contribute. If you have something to say but don’t know how to put it up–ask us, we’ll talk you through it. It’s easy, once you get started. Don’t know what to contribute? Here are some ideas:
War stories that can be sanitized beyond recognition (any posts referring to a CPCS client will be strictly scrutinized for even the slightest whiff of confientiality problems before going public)
Funny/interesting things that happen in court, but don’t involve your clients
Law-related news–we don’t need to duplicate what everybody is reporting, but we do view Dicta as a place to highlight under-reported legal news and clarify what the mass media are reporting incorrectly (think that New York Times story completely misread the new Supreme Court opinion? Tell us! Tell the world!)
Practice tips–things you see attorneys do too often that make you think “u r doing it rong!”
Anything else related to being a public defender or the law more broadly–just try to assume your reader is a non-lawyer, so we can keep the blog accessible to everybody.
Posted by AndyCowan on February 11th, 2009 :: Filed under Administrivia Tags :: metapost
I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. And having been so born and raised, I was exposed throughout my youth to a culture that was explosively political. From the age of prepubescent we’re exposed to anti-establishment, Che-like revolutionary ideals, in an attempt by the extremist factions of the island’s ideologies, to recruit the pliable sheep into their fold. And, when challenged as to their beliefs that Puerto Rico should be its own independent nation, or – more to the point – as to why Puerto Rico should not seek to join the Union, often their answer is the same: “We would loose our National team in the Olympics.”
So it was with great amusement that I read a decision by retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, sitting by designation in the Third Circuit, which stated:
“Lastly, appellant argues that ‘the existence of a Puerto Rican National olympic Committee distinct from [that of] the United States’ counsels against treating Puerto Rico as a domestic entity. . . . Without diminishing the pride Puerto Rico rightfully should enjoy in light of its place in the pantheon of international sporting events, we reject as meritless the proposition that classifications made in the context of the organization of such events find application to the construction of federal law.”
U.S. v. Marco Laboy-Torres, decided January 29, 2009.