SCOTUS Blog has this commentary on yesterday’s ruling. This case involved a challenge to a federal criminal statute which prohibits offering or receiving child pornography. SCOTUS summarizes:
. . . Today’s decision considered a facial First Amendment challenge to the so-called “PROTECT Act” which is Congress’s latest attempt to attack the proliferation of child pornography on the internet. The statute subjects to criminal punishment any person who “knowingly … advertises, promotes, distributes, or solicits … any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe, that the material or purported material is, or contains – (i) an obscene visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or (ii) a visual depiction of an actual minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.” 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(3)(B) . . .
So construed, the Court concluded, the statute only prohibits solicitations or offers relating to materials that the defendant believes, and intends others to believe, are materials Congress could constitutionally prohibit anyone from possessing. The fact that the defendant might sometimes be mistaken and that the materials might actually be constitutionally protected, the Court held, does not matter. “Offers to engage in illegal transactions are categorically excluded from First Amendment protection.” . . .
