Brown V Entertainment Merchants Association

Associations of companies that create, publish, distribute, sell and/or hire video games brought a declaratory judgment action confronting the state of California in a California federal district court. The plaintiffs brought the claim under the Get-go and Fourteenth Amendments seeking to invalidate a newly-enacted law that imposed restrictions and labeling requirements on the sale or rental of "violent video games" to minors. The commune court found in favor of the plaintiffs and prevented the enforcement of the police.

On entreatment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that: (ane) trigger-happy video games did not plant "obscenity" under the Outset Amendment, (two) the state did not not take a compelling interest in preventing psychological or neurological damage to minors allegedly caused by video games, and (iii) even if the state had a compelling interest, the constabulary was non narrowly tailored enough to meet that objective.

Questions

Does the Offset Amendment bar a state from restricting the sale of violent video games to minors?

Conclusions

Yes. The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court order in an stance by Justice Antonin Scalia. "Similar the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas—and even social messages—through many familiar literary devices (such equally characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such equally the player'south interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection." Justice Samuel Alito concurred in judgment, joined by Master Justice John Roberts. Alito noted that he disagreed "with the arroyo taken in the Court'south opinion. In because the application of unchanging constitutional principles to new and rapidly evolving applied science, this Court should go on with caution. We should brand every endeavour to understand the new technology." Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer filed dissever dissents. Adhering to his strict agreement of the Framers' intent with the Constitution, Thomas wrote: "The Court'due south determination today does not bear with the original public agreement of the First Amendment." Breyer argued that the California statute met electric current constitutional standards.