Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Sometimes, even the best intentions produce overly-broad laws that cannot be enforced or that violate the First Amendment rights of innocent parties. Last year, Alaska passed Senate Bill 222 with the intent to protect minors, but the language of the law put an unreasonable burden on internet users, including comic book creators and retailers selling at both brick and mortar stores and online.

CBLDF joined the Media Coalition and a variety of plaintiffs from Alaska in challenging the law. Alaska’s KTUU highlighted the Media Coalition’s efforts to refine the language of the law and bring the law into alignment with the First Amendment before its passage. You can read a summary of these efforts here.

Despite the Media Coalition’s efforts, the Alaska Senate unanimously passed Senate Bill 222. Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline struck down multiple provisions of the law, citing violation of the First Amendment.

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“California’s effort to regulate violent video games is the latest episode in a long series of failed attempts to censor violent entertainment for minors.”
—Justice Antonin Scalia in the majority opinion on Brown v. EMA

CBLDF is delighted to be celebrating the resounding victory in Brown v. EMA that came with yesterday’s 7-2 Supreme Court decision, a victory that dismantles the same pseudoscience that fueled the attacks on comic books in the 1950s.

Brown v. EMA (formerly Schwarzenegger v. EMA) pertains to a California law that restricted the sale of violent video games to anyone under age 18, citing that violence is harmful to minors. Previous decisions in the case ruled the law unconstitutional under the First Amendment. California appealed these decisions to the Supreme Court.

CBLDF filed an amicus brief on the case, arguing that the law was unconstitutional and a response akin to the moral panic that fomented around comic books during the 1950s. Justice Scalia’s majority opinion both referenced the CBLDF amicus brief and called to mind past concerns over comic books:

Many in the late 1940s and early 1950s blamed comic books for fostering a “preoccupation with violence and horror” among the young, leading to a rising juvenile crime rate….But efforts to convince Congress to restrict comic books failed.

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Please support the CBLDF’s defense of free speech issues like this by making a donation today!

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