Legal Niches

California A.G. Rips Violent Video Games

By gamepolitics

California Attorney General Jerry Brown (D), whose office will handle California's U.S. Supreme Court appeal of a lower court ruling that the state's 2005 violent video game law is unconstitutional, ripped such games in an interview with Ben Fritz of the Los Angeles Times:

These video game makers are shamelessly exploiting vulnerable children for profit. And in the same way pornography can be banned, pornographic violence can be banned as well.

I think, as Justice [Robert H. Jackson] once said, that the Constitution is not a suicide pact*. Disseminating this kind of poison to children is noxious.

However, the Christian Science Monitor notes that Brown is said to be eyeing a run for governor in 2010. Entertainment lawyer Ezra Doner told the CSM:

It's political grandstanding [by Brown]. It's a no-lose proposition for the attorney general. Who would say they don't want to keep children safe?...

 

[Brown] may want to focus national attention on the political balance of the Supreme Court. Picking such a hot-button issue as this would bring national attention to the court just as the president goes about choosing another justice.

* As per Wikipedia:

"The Constitution is not a suicide pact" is a rhetorical phrase in American political and legal discourse. The phrase expresses the belief that constitutional restrictions on governmental power must give way to urgent practical needs.

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on May 21, 2009 (boomark / email).