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The Supreme Court to Consider Whether Dog Fighting Videos are Protected by Free Speech:  New York Times writer Adam Liptak reports that the Supreme Court is questioning the constitutionality of a 1999 federal law banning commercial trafficking in depictions of animal cruelty.  The case, United States v. Stevens, deals with the conviction of a Virginia man for selling dog fighting videos.  The conviction is being fought on the First Amendment freedom of speech grounds.  As reported in yesterday's Blog Scan, during yesterday's oral arguments the justices asked how the law would apply to many hypotheticals.  Justice Stevens asked, "what about hunting with a bow and arrow out of season?"  Justice Scalia asked, "what if I am an aficionado of bullfights, and I think, contrary to the animal cruelty people, they ennoble both beast and man?"  All the questions suggests that the Court believes the law is too broadly written.  The aim of the law was to eliminate crush videos.  These videos show women in high heels stepping on small animals to satisfy a sexual fetish.  Justice Breyer wanted to "ask congress to write a statute that actually aims at those frightful things it was trying to prohibit."

A Plan to Protect Those Likely to Be a Victim of Crime:  New York Times writer Susan Saulny reports on a plan by Ron Humberman, the new chief officer of the public schools in Chicago, to stop the killings of Chicago public school students.  A cellphone video capturing the beating death of high school student Derrion Albert brought to light the problem of students encountering violence on their way to and from school.  To find a solution Huberman first examined a study of 500 shootings that show statistically some students are at higher risk of violence than others.  His new plan gives those students who are most vulnerable to violence a lot of adult attention, including a paid job and local advocate.  Huberman realizes that his plan has its limitations.  For instance, Albert would not have been on the high risk list - his perpetrators would have been, but Huberman remains hopeful that the plan "will give us a fighting chance to identify those that are most in trouble."  Other cities will be watching this plan to see if it helps to solve the problem of youth violence.

DNA Backlog Prevents Capture of Repeat Offender:  Boston Herald writer Robert Napper reports that federal authorities had a DNA sample from Delmer Smith III, during the months he attacked numerous women in their homes, but were unable to process it for months due to DNA backlog.  Smith's DNA was collected when he was placed in a federal prison for a 1995 bank robbery.  The FBI received Smith's DNA sample on March 3, 2008, but the being one of the 295,000 samples backlogged, the sample was not entered into the database before his September 2008 release.  Police believe that Smith committed as many as 11 home invasion attacks in two Florida counties, Sarasota County and Manatee County.  On September 24, the DNA left in four of the cases was tested against Smith's sample, now in the database, and found to be a match.  Smith is being charged with armed home invasion, false imprisonment, and sexual battery. The FBI has implemented an automated system that will increase the processing capabilities, but the backlog remains a major problem.  

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