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Full-Text Articles in Law
Violent Video Games & "Constitutionalized" Negligence, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
Violent Video Games & "Constitutionalized" Negligence, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
Deana A Pollard
Violent video games create serious risks of harm to children’s brain functioning, health, and safety. Extremely wealthy game producers’ demonstrated disregard for children’s safety raises questions about lower courts’ negligent speech liability rules that effectively bar tort liability for unreasonably dangerous speech, including violent video games. Violent Video Games & “Constitutionalized” Negligence reviews the latest scientific data on the effects of violent video games on children and challenges the prevailing negligent speech liability rules generally, and specifically relative to violent video game producers’ relationship with children. Most courts have adopted the Brandenburg incitement test to prove fault and causation in …
California's Interest In Schwarzenegger V. Entertainment Merchants Association, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
California's Interest In Schwarzenegger V. Entertainment Merchants Association, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
Deana A Pollard
The issue pending before the Supreme Court in Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association is whether a California law prohibiting the sale of the most violent “morbid or deviant” video games to minors violates the minors’ First Amendment right to receive the video game “speech.” The manner in which the Ninth Circuit has framed this issue, however, fails to identify fully all of the minors’ First Amendment interests at risk on both sides of the controversy. The most recent and credible scientific evidence concerning the risks that violent video games pose to the mental health of minors has constitutional implications that …
California's Interest In Schwarzenegger V. Entertainment Merchants Association, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
California's Interest In Schwarzenegger V. Entertainment Merchants Association, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
Deana A Pollard
The issue presented to the Court in Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association is whether a California sales regulation prohibiting the sale of the most violent “morbid or deviant” video games to minors under eighteen years of age violates the minors’ rights to receive the video game “speech.” The issue, as framed, fails to identify fully all of the minors’ First Amendment interests at risk on both sides of the controversy. When viewed from a broader perspective that considers the most recent and credible scientific evidence concerning the risks that violent video games pose to minors synthesized with constitutional policies, the …
Snyder V. Phelps & The Supreme Court's Speech-Tort Jurisprudence: A Prediction, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
Snyder V. Phelps & The Supreme Court's Speech-Tort Jurisprudence: A Prediction, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
Deana A Pollard
In Snyder v. Phelps, members of the Westboro Baptist Church targeted a young marine’s untimely death to exemplify their hate-filled message to the world that “God Hates Fags” and retaliates against America for tolerating homosexuality by killing American soldiers. A jury awarded the marine’s father $10.9 million for invasion of privacy and emotional distress after the church members disseminated extremely hateful and personalized attacks against the fallen marine’s family. The Supreme Court is reviewing the case to determine whether civil liability based on invasive, hate-filled, injurious speech violates the First Amendment. In New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court …
Speech Torts, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
Speech Torts, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
Deana A Pollard
Tort liability for speech raises important concerns about federalism, self-government, and autonomy. The Supreme Court has resolved the free speech-tort law conflict in a number of cases by balancing the nature of the speech subject to tort liability against the nature of the state’s interest in imposing tort liability, then “constitutionalizing” the tort to meet First Amendment demands by raising the burden of proof to establish a prima facie case. The Supreme Court has repeatedly denied review of tort liability for speech based on a theory of negligence, and most lower courts have adopted a categorical approach to immunize violent …
Negligent Speech Torts, Deana Pollard Sacks
Negligent Speech Torts, Deana Pollard Sacks
Deana A Pollard
Recent research on the effects of violent media on children has elevated longstanding controversy over civil liability for speech to a new level. NEGLIGENT SPEECH TORTS reviews and challenges prevailing negligent speech jurisprudence and proposes wholesale reform to the rules governing civil liability for unreasonably dangerous speech. The prevailing Brandenburg incitement test is inapposite as applied to modern dangerous speech cases and should be replaced by a “constitutionalized” negligence paradigm to reconcile First Amendment and tort policies. The Supreme Court has constitutionalized various other speech torts – such as defamation, privacy, and emotional torts – by raising their prima facie …
State Actors Beating Children: A Call For Judicial Relief, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
State Actors Beating Children: A Call For Judicial Relief, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks
Deana A Pollard
Controversy over public school corporal punishment is at an all-time high. On August 20, 2008, the Human Rights Watch/ACLU brought public attention to the issue by releasing its report on corporal punishment of children in American public schools. Lawsuits challenging this state action on constitutional grounds continue to be filed, as advocates seeking to ban school paddling refuse to accept that beating students is constitutionally permissible, despite their repeated losses in the federal courts, and the Supreme Court’s refusal to consider the issue again on June 23, 2008. Ignoring the uproar, nearly half of the United States continue to employ …