The legal battle over where political parody ends and illegal “deepfakes” begin intensified on Tuesday as the Liberty Justice Center formally entered the federal case of Kohls v. Ellison. The nonprofit legal group filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, seeking a full-court rehearing to protect creators from a Minnesota statute they argue weaponizes political satire.
The conflict centers on a state law designed to criminalize AI-generated content deemed realistic enough to deceive a “reasonable person.” Christopher Kohls, a digital creator who gained national attention for a parody video featuring former Vice President Kamala Harris, challenged the law on First Amendment grounds.
While a smaller panel of the Eighth Circuit recently dismissed the suit by claiming Kohls lacked standing, the Liberty Justice Center contends that the ruling leaves a “dangerous” door open for state prosecutors.
“Citizens need to be able to challenge vague and overbroad laws that infringe on speech,” said Reilly Stephens, Senior Counsel and Director of Amicus Practice for the Liberty Justice Center. “It is not the place for courts to decide at the outset that prosecutors wouldn’t be crazy enough to go after parody as fact—and as we’ve learned over and over again, the process is the punishment.”
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Attorneys for the Center argue that the current judicial interpretation ignores the literal text of the Minnesota law. They maintain that because high-ranking officials have previously called for the removal of Kohls’ content, the threat of prosecution is a documented reality rather than a hypothetical fear.
By denying the case a full hearing, the Center argues the court is forcing creators into a state of self-censorship to avoid legal “uncertainty.”
The request for a rehearing en banc asks the full bench of the Eighth Circuit to clarify the “arguably proscribed” standard—the legal benchmark for whether a person can sue over a law before they are actually arrested.
The Liberty Justice Center is pushing the court to affirm that using new technology for traditional political expression remains protected under the First Amendment, regardless of whether that technology involves artificial intelligence.
The case remains one of the first major tests of how decades-old free speech protections will apply to the rapidly evolving landscape of generative AI in the political arena.
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