H.R. 724<\/a>, entitled the “Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act” or “PACT Act.”\u00a0 The measure would retain the existing prohibition in 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 48 on the creation and distribution of “crush videos” but would also criminalize an intentional act of animal crushing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nThe bill defines “animal crushing” to include conduct in which one or more living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians is purposely crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury.\u00a0 A “crush video” is defined as any photograph, motion picture, video or digital recording that depicts animal crushing and is obscene.\u00a0 Crush videos apparently appeal to individuals with a particular sexual fetish.<\/p>\n
In addition to the existing prohibition on the creation and distribution of crush videos, H.R. 724 would make it unlawful for any person “to purposely engage in animal crushing in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce.”\u00a0 A violation of the law would be punishable by fine and imprisonment of not more than seven years.<\/p>\n
Among other situations, the law would expressly not apply to customary or normal veterinary practice; slaughter of animals for food; hunting, trapping, fishing or similar lawful activity; pest or predator control; medical or scientific research;\u00a0 conduct necessary to protect the life of property or a person; and animal euthanization.\u00a0 The anti-crushing prohibition also does not apply to “unintentional conduct that injures or kills an animal” which, presumably, would insulate a person from prosecution who, for example, unintentionally runs over an animal with an automobile.<\/p>\n
The current version of 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 48 and H.R. 724 embody the congressional response to the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Stevens<\/em>, 559 U.S. 460 (2010), which involved a prior version of 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 48 that broadly criminalized the portrayal of harmful acts towards animals.\u00a0 It was recognized that the main purpose of the prior law was to prohibit crush videos, but the statute cut a broader swath, in the case of Stevens, supporting the indictment of an individual convicted for the sale of videos that depicted pit bulls fighting other animals.\u00a0\u00a0 The Supreme Court affirmed the vacation of the defendant’s conviction on the ground that the statute was facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment.\u00a0\u00a0 As written, the statute covered crush videos, but also covered conduct towards animals that would not even be defined as cruel.\u00a0 The statute therefore was overly broad.\u00a0 The Court signaled, however, that a statute written to narrowly ban crush videos might very well pass constitutional muster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by John M. Simpson. On October 22, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 724, entitled the “Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act” or “PACT Act.”\u00a0 The measure would retain the existing prohibition in 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 48 on the creation and distribution of “crush videos” but would also criminalize an intentional act of … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “House Passes Bill Amending “Crush Video” Prohibition”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[98,479,49,475,473,187,476,5,474,478,477,480],"ppma_author":[697],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-animal-cruelty","tag-animal-crushing","tag-animal-law","tag-crush-video","tag-facial-unconstitutionality","tag-first-amendment","tag-h-r-724","tag-john-simpson","tag-overbreadth","tag-pact-act","tag-preventing-animal-cruelty-and-torture-act","tag-u-s-v-stevens"],"authors":[{"term_id":697,"user_id":317,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jmsimpson","display_name":"John M. Simpson","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2018\/06\/simpsonjohn-125x150.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}