Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has joined attorneys general from 24 other states in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate a federal animal cruelty law recently struck down by a federal appeals court.

A friend of the court brief, filed in June by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum and the Humane Society of the United States, asks the nation’s highest court to overturn a 2008 ruling by the 3rd
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that depictions of animal cruelty were “protected free speech” and that preventing animal cruelty was “not a compelling state interest.”

That ruling struck down the 1999 federal Depiction of Animal Cruelty Act, which banned the commercial sale of videos depicting extreme and illegal acts of animal cruelty.

The attorneys general argue that animal cruelty is often closely associated with other serious crimes such as gang activity, drug dealing and violent felonies.

McDaniel brokered compromise legislation this year that became Arkansas’ first felony animal cruelty law. Gov. Mike Beebe signed the measure into law, making torture of a dog, cat or horse a felony on first offense in the state.

Under the state law, a conviction for aggravated animal cruelty is punishable by up to six years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. The law also includes a five-year sentencing enhancement for anyone convicted of torturing an animal in the presence of a child.