View source for Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants Assn.

[[Category:Violence]]
[[Category:2010-2011]]


==Background==

==The California Law==

In 2005, the California State Legislature passed AB 1179, sponsored by California State Senator Leland Yee. The law prohibited the sale or rental of violent video games to children under the age of 18. Retailers who violated the statute would have been fined up to $1,000. The language of the law meant to mirror the Miller Test ('''possibly add internal link to page here''').Violent video games are defined as those games in which "the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being." The bill was signed into law by Gov. Schwarzenegger in October 2005.The law would have gone into effect in January 2006.

[http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/05-06/bill/asm/ab_1151-1200/ab_1179_bill_20051007_chaptered.html Full text]

==Legal Challenges==

===District Court Opinion===

====California's Appeal====

===Ninth Circuit Appeal===

==Supreme Court Review==

===Decision===

The Supreme Court ruled that video games are allowed the same protection under the first amendment as books, plays, and movies. The ruling also distinguished between the California statute and Ginsburg vs. New York by asserting that the former did not “adjust the boundaries of an existing category of unprotected speech to ensure that a definition designed for adults is not uncritically applied to children” but rather proposed “a new category of unprotected speech”. The Court also denied that the defendant presented sufficient evidence to prove a direct causal relationship between violent video games and aggressive behavior in children and that the effects that are proven are indistinguishable from those caused by other media.

===Reactions===

==References==


==External Links==

[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf Full text of Decision]

[http://www.ncac.org/Supreme-Court-Rules-Video-Games-Are-Protected-Speech Article featured on NCAC website]