Judge: Animal snuff films protected by 1st Amendment

[MadMan1978]

Torturing animals and filming their painful deaths is an activity protected by the U.S. Constitution, according to a federal judge in Texas.
In an opinion issued this week, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake tossed out charges against a Houston couple accused of violating the federal “animal crush video” statute. Lake wrote that the law “abridges the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.”
Ashley Nicole Richards and Brent Justice allegedly created and distributed violent sex fetish videos -- nimal snuff films -- that depicted the torture of puppies, kittens, rabbits, and other animals.


http://www.philly.com/philly/news/na...Amendment.html




I actually have no words!

[xpucksx]

Here are two people that we could let all of the gun nuts go crazy on...supreme cowardice displayed here

and another display of people COMPLETE misinterpretation and twisting the Bill of Rights and everythign that it stands for. By this definition, ANYTHING can be argued as freedom of speech. I guess this makes child pornography ok...and I can run out and cut up crowds of people with a chainsaw because it is my right to express myself that way

maybe I am moving to Sweden sooner than I thought

[habsheaven]

Thank that imaginary deity in the sky that we have laws against animal cruelty up here and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms isn't perverse enough to allow such a thing.

[shrewsbury]

Ohio law states

959.13 CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

(A) No person shall:

(1) Torture an animal, deprive one of necessary sustenance, unnecessarily or cruelly beat, needlessly mutilate or kill, or impound or confine an animal without supplying it during such confinement with a sufficient quantity of good wholesome food and water;

[xpucksx]

Ohio law states
959.13 CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

(A) No person shall:

(1) Torture an animal, deprive one of necessary sustenance, unnecessarily or cruelly beat, needlessly mutilate or kill, or impound or confine an animal without supplying it during such confinement with a sufficient quantity of good wholesome food and water;

too bad Texas law doesn't state that either...

this makes me more mad than most subjects that we debate about here. Another reason that I personally don't own guns -> I would have absolutely NO problem killing people who do this to animals. None. People that choose to do this are not humans, and in my opinion do not get the protection of the Bill Of Rights cause they willingly give up any rights they would have when they step outside the laws of sensible morality. I sincerely hope that the people who participate in this activity suffer any and every kind of grief imaginable in this world to themselves and their families...curses on them

[mrveggieman]

Anyone who does that to an animal deserves the same thing done to them.

[Wickabee]

...And Americans think their constitution isn't being urinated on daily by other Americans.

[xpucksx]

...And Americans think their constitution isn't being urinated on daily by other Americans.

...and it's usually the same Americans doing the urintaing that are also yelling about, or hiding behind, those same papers and Rights