U.S. District Judge Sim Lake on Wednesday ruled that a section of the law "abridges (diminishes) the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution." in dismissing five federal counts against a couple accused of creating and distributing "animal crush videos."
More about the case @ Houston Chronicle
The seven-count federal grand jury indictment accused Richards and Justice of using meat cleavers and other knives to torture puppies, chickens and kittens, and videotaping the alleged abuse for sale on the Internet in so-called crush videos.
Last August, state prosecutors said in court that throughout 2010 Richards received emails from clients who offered to pay her to provide them with videos of tortured animals for their sexual gratification.
Investigators seized multiple videos made by Richards and Justice of various animals being tortured. In one of the videos, Richards allegedly stomped on a cat's eye with a shoe heel.
More about the judge, appointed as a judge on the U.S. District Court's Southern District of Texas in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan on
WIKI
On October 23, 2006 Lake sentenced Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling to the minimum possible sentence under federal guidelines, 24 years, with significantly less time actually expected to be served by Skilling. Lake imposed this rather lenient sentence despite federal laws that would have allowed for significantly longer sentences to act as a deterrent for other white collar criminals.
He later vacated all convictions of Ken Lay, following Lay's death, allowing Lay's family to keep all Lay's accumulated wealth, a ruling later upheld despite the public's attempt to overrule and recover its multibillion dollar losses.[3].
Judge Sims ruled that videos showing cruelty to animals are protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution despite laws against cruelty to animals and evidence that cruelty to animals can be a precursor to cruelty to human beings[2][3][4] as well as murder[5].
A petition has been launched to reverse this ruling. According to court records the couple still faces two federal counts in the indictment, for selling or transferring obscene matter, and production and transportation of obscene matter.
I join Animal Lovers and Animal Rights Activists in total outrage over Judge Lake's decision and
I'm going to exercise my first amendment right and say that I think he should be removed. He does not deserve to wear a robe.
A petition : DEMAND THAT JUDGE SIM LAKE rethinks his decision on ANIMAL CRUSH VIDEOS @ http://www.causes.com/...