Nine states and Puerto Rico joined to file a brief with the Supreme Court late Friday night urging the justices not to uphold a California law that bans the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.
Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch, supported by lawyers from Irell & Manella in Los Angeles, submitted the brief (pdf) in the case Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association & Entertainment Software Association on behalf of his state and Arkansas, Georgia, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Utah and Washington. In addition to raising the “specter of censorship,” the states agreed that California’s law if replicated would waste scarce law enforcement resources and provide support for a Twinkie-style defense argument that “the video game made me do it” for accused criminals.
