The Human Sacrifice Channel
The supreme court is in session again! And this promises to be one of the most action-packed terms in recent memory. The court has multiple cases about the first amendment and a huge one about the second, among others.
Yesterday the court heard a first amendment case: U.S. v. Stevens , which concerns the constitutionality of a 1999 ban on the sale of depictions of animal cruelty if the acts themselves would be illegal where the sale takes place. Personally, I think the law is an unconstitutional load of baloney that opens up a can of worms and undermines the first amendment.
The Justices appeared to agree, and subjected the government’s lawyer Patricia Millet to a withering barrage of skeptical questions (except for Justice Thomas, who made his best Eeyore face).
One of the more thought-provoking ones was asked by Justice Alito, specifically, if Millet thought it would be constitutional for congress to ban a hypothetical human sacrifice TV channel. “I mean, people here would probably love to see it. Live, pay per view, you know, on the Human Sacrifice Channel,” Alito cheerfully clarified.
Millet conceded that congress could not ban such content simply on the basis of its potential to offend. It was pretty much downhill from there, as that admission shot a hole you could toss a cat through into her case, which involved defending the very thing she had just admitted congress did not have the power to do. Oops.
I have confidence that the Justices will throw this silly silly law out with extreme prejudice, maybe even with an 8-1 decision. Why only 8-1? Because Thomas will probably find some contrarian reason to oppose his colleagues, just like he thought it was okay for a school to strip search its students because it was acting as a parent (because we all know it’s so okay for parents to strip-search their kids). But he’s always been an odd duck.
Categorised as: Constitutional Law