The Supreme Court justices appeared highly skeptical of the State of California's arguments today that certain violent video games should be illegal to buy, questioning whether such exceptions would need to be applied to rap music and even Grimm's fairy tales.
The justices were hearing arguments in California vs. the Entertainment Merchants Association and Entertainment Software Association, a
five year battle in the courts that so far has tilted in favor of the video game industry.
The court was full today for the gaming case. Oral arguments kicked off a little after 10 am ET, as the nine Justices took their seats at the bench, in front of attorneys for both sides and a packed gallery. Press, including Kotaku, sat off to the left, near towering columns in the massive classical courthouse. [
Read key excerpts from the oral arguments.]
California deputy attorney general Zackery Morazzini started today's one hour session at the U.S. Supreme Court saying that the "deviant level of violence that is presented in a certain of category of video games" requires legal restrictions to protect minors.
Morazzini's opening statement was almost immediately interrupted by Justice Antonin Scalia who pointed out that Grimm's fairy tales are very violent as well.
"Are you going to ban them too?" Scalia asked of the attorney general.
Scalia, one of the court's most conservative justices and most vocal in the questioning of the state today, repeatedly and often with humor questioned Morazznii about the California law and its effects on the first amendment.
"You are asking us to create a whole new prohibition, which the American people never ratified when they ratified the First Amendment... what's next after violence? Drinking? Smoking? Movies that show smoking can't be shown to children?," asked Scalia in the hearing.
"I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games," Justice Samuel Alito joked.
No one attending ventured a guess.
While not as vigorous in their questioning, the court also pressed the video game industry's resistance to accept any law that would limit the exposure of children to a potentially harmful game. And questioned whether the industry would accept lesser restrictions such as requiring putting violent video games on the top shelf.
Some justices wondered if there was perhaps a valid interest in protecting minors from hyper-violent games.
Imagining a game that allows a player to torture babies, Justice Stephen Breyer asked. "Why isn't it common sense to say a State has the right to say 'Parents if you want that for your 13-year-old, you go buy it yourself?'
While the justices did not betray intimate knowledge of playing games some seemed familiar with the medium. Justice Elena Kagan at one point asked California if Mortal Kombat would be banned under California's law. "Half of the clerks [in the Court] who work for us spend considerable amount of time in their adolescence playing [it]," she said. "I don't know what she's talking about," Scalia quipped.
