Rejection of Illinois game law upheld

Last year, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich signed the Violent Video Games Law and the Sexually Explicit Video Games Law. The two laws sought to limit the sale and rental of games with violent and sexually explicit content to minors, and it required retailers to post warning signs and label such games with four-inch-squared stickers carrying an "18" label. Neither law had a chance to go into effect, as the industry trade group Entertainment Software Association challenged both pieces of legislation in court and had them declared unconstitutional.

Blagojevich vowed to appeal the ruling and continue "the crusade against violent video games," but only wound up filing an appeal to save the Sexually Explicit Video Games Law (SEVGL). Today the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision on Blagojevich's appeal, denying it on each count and upholding the previous court's ruling.

A trio of judges denied the appeal primarily because they found the law wasn't tailored narrowly enough. While the state plucked phrasing from previously upheld obscenity statutes for its law, the court noted that it neglected to include some key phrases from those laws. Specifically, the SEVGL wouldn't require authorities to take into account whether or not the work in question had some redeeming social importance for minors or "literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" when taken as a whole.

The appellate judges also denied the state's argument that the law was narrowly tailored because it only applied to minors, noting that even minors have First Amendment rights. They even referred to a previous game-related ruling in the same appellate court, where the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, was appealing to have its ordinance restricting minors from playing violent arcade games declared constitutional.

"The murderous fanaticism displayed by young German soldiers in World War II, alumni of the Hitler Jugend, illustrates the danger of allowing government to control the access of children to information and opinion," the court wrote in that case.

The appeals court judges also upheld the ruling that the state's plans to put a sticker on all games deemed sexually explicit were unconstitutional.

"Indeed, at four square inches, the '18' sticker literally [emphasis in original] fails to be narrowly tailored--the sticker covers a substantial portion of the box. The State has failed to even explain why a smaller sticker would not suffice. Certainly we would not condone a health department's requirement that half of the space on a restaurant menu be consumed by the raw shellfish warning. Nor will we condone the State's unjustified requirement of the four square-inch '18' sticker."

As of press time, neither Governor Blagojevich's office nor the firm representing the state had returned GameSpot's requests for comment as to whether or not they would further appeal the ruling.