Death by Adjective: The Supreme Court’s Attack on Legislative Regulations of Violence, or, How Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia Stopped Worrying about Symbolic Violence by Employing Aesthetic Claims to Limit Legislative Restrictions on Violence

Abstract

In the recent decisions of United States v. Stevens, 599 U.S. ___ (2009) and Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association 564 U.S. ___ (2011), the Supreme Court of the United States struck down legislation that restricted access to depictions and representation of violent expression on the grounds that the restrictions violated the First Amendment’s prohibition on content-discrimination. Though the Supreme Court decides Stevens and Brown as a straightforward protection of freedom of speech, it is my contention that these decisions provide citizens with an understanding of the constitutionality of representations of violence through competing aesthetic discourses. By examining these cases in terms of the aesthetic arguments inherent in them, this paper extends an understanding of constitutional interpretation as well as discusses the way in which the argumentative strategies over aesthetics offer competing visions of rights and responsibilities in civic life.