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Michigan Law Restricting Violent Video Game Sales Overturned
On March 31, 2006 a United States District Judge for The Eastern District of Michigan, ruled that a Michigan state law criminalizing the sale of violent video games to anyone under 17 years of age is unconstitutional because those forms of entertainment are protected by the First Amendment's freedom of expression clause, as well as being unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment for being unconstitutionally vague. This decision is the latest in a series of decisions which have declared similar laws in Washington, Illinois and California unconstitutional on free-speech grounds.
In the 17-page decision, Judge George Caram Steeh stated that “video games contain creative, expressive free speech, inseparable from their interactive functional elements, and are therefore protected by the First Amendment”. Judge Steeh also dismissed expert opinions and academic studies that attempted to establish a link between simulated violence in video games and real-world action as failing to meet the “substantial evidence” requirement under the strict scrutiny standard for permitting the regulation of constitutionally-protected content.
For a copy of the decision, visit:
http://www.politechbot.com/docs/michigan.video.game.decision.040306.pdf
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