Dog Fighting and the First

Sara Adams
Undergraduate/Political Science 

Is making videos about dog fighting a crime? And if so one that justifies more than three years of jail time?  
A Virginia man is sentenced to 37 months in prison for making documentary-style videos about the history of pit bulls, which includes engaging in dog fights and hunting wild boars. Prosecutors say the videos violate a 1999 law against trafficking in depictions of animal cruelty. While the videos contained old footage of dog fights, the accused, Robert J. Stevens, did not actually set up any new dog fights. The Supreme Court will hear his appeal on October 6. 
While the John Roberts Court is said to be taking the court in a conservative direction, it’s likely the court will take this opportunity to establish clear legal precedent in support of the First Amendment. None of the narrow free speech exceptions can reasonably be applied to this case. The videos don’t pose a clear and present danger, and aren’t the equivalent of crying fire in a crowded theatre. And as for that hard to pin down obscenity exception, the videos are no worse than a lot of what can be found on YouTube, or in gory movies.

Nevertheless, animal rights advocates are arguing that the depictions of dog fighting in the video are so appalling that they’re simply not protected under the First Amendment. The idea that a depiction of an atrocity is deserving of punishment under the law is one that is becoming more common in recent years, especially in so called progressive academia. Animal rights activists are now joining feminists who would like to punish sexist and racist speech to the same degree that we punish racist and sexist acts 
However, this trend is an insult to those who are actually victims. We can all agree that animal abuse is awful. The best way to end it is to prosecute the perpetrators, rather than legal battles with people who aren’t engaging in animal cruelty.
The most disconcerting thing about this case is that as reprehensible as censorship is, jail time for speech is something else altogether. I‘ve met a lot of people who would rather not see the views they most disagree with in the media, and would even be fine with seeing those views forcibly silenced. So while I don’t agree with that at all, I’d say the censorship urge is common. But to go beyond censoring the material we find objectionable, and actually put people behind bars, that’s extremism. Stevens’s house was actually raided by federal agents. What a way to spend federal money. 

In the trials leading up the Supreme Court hearing, a vet was actually brought in to testify as to the condition of the animals in the film. Some of the dog fighting footage originated in Japan, where dog fighting is legal. This attempts to paint Stevens as somehow responsible—for dog fights that took place in Japan! If the court were to rule against him ,we could conceivably regulate all depictions of suffering. Literature about war could be censored on the grounds that it somehow exacerbates it.  
There’s also a very reasonable case to be made that these videos had a positive educational value that would make more people aware of and opposed to dog fighting. Ending depictions of what we object to does not make it go away, rather, it turns into something we cannot address or engage. When the world’s current events are muffled we are powerless to do anything about them. 

Further, laws like these are always made by only a few lawmakers, in effect making them gatekeepers of what information can be disclosed. Lawmakers cannot be trusted to determine what video footage of upsetting events contributes to the public good and what is detrimental. After all, live coverage of the Vietnam War turned the pubic against it, and surely these images were far worse then what can be seen in Stevens’s dog fighting videos. 
The law was initially partially meant to address a real problem: there are videotapes that are made and sold to sick people who enjoy watching animals be crushed; the law was meant to deter people from harming animals and videotaping it. However, these crimes can best be addressed by prosecuting these people for harming the animals while making the videos, because there are laws against animal cruelty in all states. The videos can be used as evidence. Prosecuting the act rather than the depiction prevents an overbroad application that punishes people like Stevens, who is actually said to be a pit-bull owner who treats his dogs incredibly well. 

This is an excellent opportunity for the Supreme Court to reiterate that First Amendment free speech protection isn’t conditional on a feel good message.