The video game industry and free-speech proponents landed yet another legal victory on Monday, when a federal appeals court affirmed a 2006 rejection of a Minnesota law restricting minors' access to violent titles.
The Minnesota law would have imposed up to a $25 fine on minors younger than 17 caught buying or renting video games rated "M" for mature or "AO" for adults-only, under the video game industry's rating system.
But a U.S. district judge blocked the new policy the day before it was scheduled to take effect. The judge cited constitutional concerns and "a paucity of evidence linking the availability of video games with any harm to Minnesota's children at all."
The state appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, where a three-judge panel unanimously upheld the lower court's findings in an eight-page opinion (PDF) released Monday.....
The appeals court ultimately ruled that the state "failed to come forth with incontrovertible proof of a causal relationship between the exposure to such violence and subsequent psychological dysfunction," and it disagreed with its constitutional interpretation.
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