Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 392.0

529US1

Unit: $U42

[10-11-01 11:58:08] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 277 (2000)

317

Stevens, J., dissenting

opinion).5
I may not be less ignorant of nude dancing than
I was nine years ago, but after many subsequent occasions
to think further about the needs of the First Amendment,
I have come to believe that a government must toe the mark
more carefully than I ﬁrst insisted.
I hope it is enlighten-
ment on my part, and acceptable even if a little late. See
Henslee v. Union Planters Nat. Bank & Trust Co., 335 U. S.
595, 600 (1949) (per curiam) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

II

The record before us now does not permit the conclusion
that Erie’s ordinance is reasonably designed to mitigate real
harms. This does not mean that the required showing can-
not be made, only that, on this record, Erie has not made it.
I would remand to give it the opportunity to do so.6 Accord-
ingly, although I join with the plurality in adopting the
O’Brien test, I respectfully dissent from the Court’s disposi-
tion of the case.

Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins,

dissenting.

Far more important than the question whether nude danc-
ing is entitled to the protection of the First Amendment
are the dramatic changes in legal doctrine that the Court
endorses today. Until now, the “secondary effects” of com-
mercial enterprises featuring indecent entertainment have
justiﬁed only the regulation of their location. For the ﬁrst
time, the Court has now held that such effects may justify

5 See Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, in 44 Great Books of the Western

World 82 (R. Hutchins & M. Adler eds. 1952).

6 This suggestion does not, of course, bar the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court from choosing simpler routes to disposition of the case if they exist.
Respondent mounted a federal overbreadth challenge to the ordinance; it
also asserted a violation of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Either one
of these arguments, if successful, would obviate the need for the factual
development that is a prerequisite to O’Brien analysis.