Legal Niches

Legal Expert Says California's Supreme Court Bid is Likely to Fail

By gamepolitics

An expert on media law has told the Christian Science Monitor it is unlikely that the United States Supreme Court will accept California's petition to review the constitutionality of its violent video game law.

Dave Kohler (left), who heads the Southwestern Law School Donald Biederman Entertainment and Media Law Institute, told the CSM:

For a variety of reasons, I don't think [the Justices will] take [California's case]. The most significant one is the fact that if you apply this [violence] standard to video games, then you have to apply it to television, movies, and pay cable shows as well.

You're talking about the central topic of many of the great works of literature throughout history.

Aong that line, the CSM takes note of the 2001 ruling by Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court. In striking down an Indianapolis game violence statute, Posner wrote:

To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.

DOCUMENT DUMP: Read Judge Posner's decision in AAMA v. Kendrick.

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on May 22, 2009 (boomark / email).