Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

In a Washington Post op/ed piece that draws heavily upon ground covered by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s amicus brief in EMA v. Schwarzenegger, pundit George Will discusses the moral panic facing the video game industry today and its roots in the censorship in comics. Check out his perspective here.

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The Hooded Utilitarian’s Sean Michael Robinson delivers a well constructed analysis of the case of Steve Kutzner, an Idaho man who plead guilty to possession of “obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse” last month.

The most widely reported element of Kutzner’s conviction is that he plead guilty to possessing pornographic art depicting characters from the Simpsons, but Robinson digs into the plea agreement and talks to the prosecuting attorney to find that the case wasn’t so clear-cut. Kutzner was flagged by German authorities who believed he was participating in file-sharing of actual child pornography, and when United States authorities investigated they found there was evidence enough to argue that he had, although that evidence was triable.

Robinson’s reporting paints a vivid picture of the legal issues at stake. He speculates on the probable defensive posture that would have been taken if this case had gone to trial, emphasizing that the government would have had the burden of proving the material Kutzner plead guilty to possessing was obscene.

More intriguingly, he illustrates how the threat of mandatory minimum sentences is being used by prosecutors to scare up plea agreements from people like Kutzner and Handley.

The conclusion Robinson arrives at is that, in this case, probably Kutzner was guilty of something. But the law in question is being applied on a case by case basis in a way that makes more people vulnerable to prosecution for possession of drawings. As more prosecutors begin taking up these sorts of cases, the line between art and obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse is in the eye of the prosecuting beholder.

It’s a good article about a bad law.

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Robert Corn-Revere, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s general counsel, provides a detailed summary and analysis of the oral arguments in Schwarzenegger v. EMA, which was argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week. One of the country’s leading First Amendment experts, Corn-Revere successfully litigated U.S. v. Stevens and recently wrote the CBLDF’s amicus brief in the Schwarzenegger case. Full story follows the jump.

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Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Schwarzenegger v. EMA, a case addressing whether states can ban the sale of violent video games to minors without also violating the First Amendment. A full transcript of oral arguments has been made available here. Coverage emerging since arguments concluded yesterday indicate that the Court appears skeptical towards the California law’s constitutionality. After the jump, we gather the news and analysis.

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This morning the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Schwarzenegger v. EMA, a case addressing whether states can ban the sale of violent video games to minors without also violating the First Amendment. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund wrote a brief in support of the video game industry, urging the court to to affirm the Ninth Circuit’s decision that a California law banning the sale or rental of any video game containing violent content to minors, and requiring manufacturers to label such games, is unconstitutional. The CBLDF brief emphasizes the history of moral panic that led to the comics industry being decimated in the wake of government scrutiny in the 1950s.

Early reports from oral arguments indicate that members of the court were “sympathetic” to the California law, but strongly questioned its constitutionality. Full story, with links to analysis and transcripts, follows the break.

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U.S. District Judge Rya W. Zobel granted a preliminary injunction against the online censorship law that went into effect in Massachusetts earlier this year. Massachusetts booksellers, trade associations including the CBLDF, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts filed suit in July to block the law because it imposes severe restrictions on constitutionally protected speech on the Internet, on the grounds that such material might be “harmful to minors.” The Court enjoined the law because it did not require that such material was purposefully sent to a person the sender knew to be a minor.

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