Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum and The Humane Society of the United States, joined by half of the country's state Attorneys General, today filed "friend of the court" or amicus briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate a crucial federal animal cruelty law struck down by the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals last year.
In 1999, the federal Depiction of Animal Cruelty Act banned the commercial sale of videos depicting extreme and illegal acts of animal cruelty. The federal law was prompted by an HSUS investigation that uncovered an underground subculture of "animal crush" videos that showed women, often in high-heeled shoes, impaling and crushing to death puppies, kittens and other small animals, catering to those with a fetish for this aberrant behavior. The law halted the proliferation of animal crushing operations, and has also been used to crack down on commercial dogfighting operations, in which the animals often fight to the death for the amusement of viewers.
"Animal fighting is a serious crime, violent and heinous in nature, and depictions of that and other extreme animal cruelty should indeed be prohibited under the federal law," said Attorney General McCollum. "I supported this law in Congress and I am honored to have the chance to do so again as Florida's Attorney General."
Last year, in U.S. v. Stevens, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the depictions for which Stevens was being prosecuted were "protected speech" and that preventing animal cruelty was "not a compelling state interest." The U.S. Solicitor General requested that the Supreme Court review of the Third Circuit's ruling and was granted certiorari.
The Attorney General's amicus brief on the merits states animal cruelty is often closely associated with other serious crimes such as gang activity, drug dealing, and violent felonies. The HSUS's amicus brief on the merits of the case emphasizes that videos of animals being tortured are not protected speech, and preventing animal cruelty is a compelling state interest
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