American Amusement Machine Association v. Kendrick

An Indianapolis city ordinance prohibited operators of five or more video-game machines in one place from allowing unaccompanied minors to use a video-game machine that was “harmful to minors.” The term harmful to minors was defined to include video-game machines that depicted graphic violence (i.e., a realistic visual depiction or representation of serious physical injury to a human or human-like character). The ordinance also provided that video-game machines with content harmful to minors had to be labeled with warning signs and separated from other video-game machines by a partition that would conceal the purportedly harmful content from view. The city passed the ordinance because city lawmakers believed that minors who played violent video games would become violent. The American Amusement Machine Association (the association) (plaintiff), a trade association of video-game manufacturers, brought an action in federal district court against Indianapolis city prosecutor Teri Kendrick and other government officials (defendants), seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the enforcement of the ordinance. The association claimed that the ordinance violated the First Amendment freedom of expression. The district court denied the association’s request for injunctive relief, reasoning that although video games are speech for purposes of the First Amendment, the ordinance would be unconstitutional only if the city did not have a reasonable basis for believing that the ordinance would protect children from harm. The district court found that a reasonable basis existed because two psychological studies had found that young people who played violent video games exhibited aggressive attitudes and behavior. However, the studies had not found that video games had ever caused someone to commit a violent act or had caused actual increased violence anywhere. The association appealed.