Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to California Law Banning Sale of Violent Video Games to Minors

On April 26, 2010, the Supreme Court granted the state of California's petition for certoriari in EMA v. Schwarzenegger. The case concerns a 2005 law restricting the sale or rental to minors of  video games with violent content. The law would also require game manufacturors and distributors to label the games with "18 and older" warning stickers on their front covers. Retailers who violated the law, which was blocked by a federal judge in 2006 before it took effect, would face civil penalties of up to $1000.

Media Coalition filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the plaintiffs in this case, arguing that speech with violent content could not be regulated by the government and that the labeling requirement was unconstitutional as compelled speech. Although a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit in 2009 unanimously ruled that the law violates the  First Amendment, the Supreme Court has decided to hear the case. EMA v. Schwarzenegger, which will be heard in the Court's fall term, represents the first time the high court has heard a case regarding  violent content in video games.

Executive Director David Horowitz said on Monday that "last week's ruling in U.S. v. Stevens [...] reiterated that speech is protected by the First Amendment save for a small number of narrow historic exceptions." He continued, "The speech at issue in this case does not fall within one of those narrow exceptions, and we hope that the Court will decline to create a new category of unprotected speech."

updated 4/28/10