SCOTUS Judges Played Video Games Before Deciding Violent Video Games Case
In 2011, the Supreme Court voted 7-2 to strike down California's ban on the sale of violent video games to minors, citing the same free-speech protections that every other form of literature gets.
Backers of the ban had argued that games were fundamentally different because they are "interactive," but the majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia rejected this idea on the grounds that all literature contains an interactive component.
Before making that decision, however, several High Court judges thought they needed to see some of those games for themselves, according to remarks by Justice Elena Kagan earlier this week. "The justices are not necessarily the most technologically sophisticated people," she said, according to the Associated Press.
So they decided to try playing some video games on their own. The result, she said, was "kind of hilarious."
Kagan said the justices often turn to their clerks, who are much younger, to help them understand new technologies.
But they also try to learn on their own. In one case, involving violent video games the first year she was on the court, justices who had never played the games before dove in and gave them a try, Kagan said.
"It was kind of hilarious," she said.
She didn't say which games they played.
I'm really hoping they played Skyrim, becuase I really want to know who sided with the Stormcloaks and who sided with the Imperial Legion.
Read Reason's Jacob Sullum on the legal challenge to California's games ban here.
(Via TPM.)
