Title: City of Nyssa v. Dufloth/Smith
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S49963
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: September 29, 2005

FILED:  September 29, 2005
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
CITY OF NYSSA,
Respondent on Review,
v.
SALLY A. DUFLOTH,
Petitioner on Review.
CITY OF NYSSA,
Respondent on Review,
v.
DUANE L. SMITH,
Petitioner on Review.
(CC A00080112, A00080111; CA A113180 (control),
A113181; SC S49963)
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted November 3, 2003.
Laura Graser, Portland, argued the cause and filed the brief
for petitioners on review.
James N. Westwood, of Stoel Rives LLP, Portland, argued the
cause and filed the brief for respondent on review.  With him on
the brief was Gary Kiyuna, of Stunz, Fonda, Kiyuna &amp; Horton,
Nyssa.
Bradley J. Woodworth and Lake James Perriguey, of Bradley J.
Woodworth &amp; Associates, PC, Portland, filed the briefs for amicus
curiae Association of Club Executives.
James K. Neill and Jennifer Williamson, of Davis Wright
Tremaine LLP, Portland, filed the briefs for amicus curiae
Danzine.
Chin See Ming and Julia E. Markley, of Perkins Coie LLP,
Portland, filed the brief for amici curiae ACLU Foundation of
Oregon, Inc. and White Bird.
Carmel E. Bender, Portland, filed the brief for amicus
curiae Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation for Recovery.
Robert M. Atkinson, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, filed
the brief for amicus curiae State of Oregon.
Tracy Pool Reeve, Senior Deputy City Attorney, City
Attorney's Office, Portland, filed the brief for amici curiae
City of Portland and the League of Oregon Cities.  With her on
the brief was Christy K. Monson, Salem.
Before Carson, Chief Justice, and Gillette, Durham, Riggs,
Me Muniz, and Balmer, Justices.**
GILLETTE, J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The
judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the case is
remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings.
De Muniz, J., dissented and filed an opinion.  
*Appeal from Malheur County Circuit Court, 
Rodney W. Miller, Judge. 184 Or App 631, 57 P3d 161 (2002). 
**Kistler, J., did not participate in the consideration or
decision of this case.
GILLETTE, J.
In this criminal case, the defendants, owners of a nude
dancing club, were convicted of violating a local ordinance that
required, among other things, that entertainers at such clubs
remain at least four feet away from the patrons.  Defendants
appealed their convictions to the Court of Appeals, arguing that
the ordinance was facially unconstitutional as an unlawful
restraint on expression in violation of Article I, section 8, of
the Oregon Constitution. (1)  A divided, en banc Court of
Appeals affirmed the ruling of the lower court.  City of Nyssa v.
Dufloth/Smith, 184 Or App 631, 57 P3d 161 (2002).  We allowed
review and, for the reasons set out below, now reverse the
decision of the Court of Appeals.  
The pertinent facts are not in dispute.  Defendants are
the owners and managers of "Miss Sally's Gentlemen's Club" in the
City of Nyssa.  The club features nude female dancers.  The club
admits patrons 18 years of age and older and does not serve
alcohol.  
In February 2000, a police officer responded to a
complaint at the club and, upon entering, saw a nude dancer
kneeling against a barrier surrounding the stage, shaking her
hair in a patron's face.  The dancer was less than a foot away
from the patron.  The officer arrested defendants for violating a
section of the Nyssa City Code (NCC), which provides, (2) in
part:
"5.10.130: Every adult concession shall comply with the
following standards of operation and the following
standards of conduct must be adhered to by employees
and entertainers of all adult concessions:
"* * * * *
"(17) No entertainer is permitted to be unclothed or in
less than opaque and complete attire, costume or
clothing, so as to expose to view any portion of the
pubic region, buttocks, genitals, vulva, or anus,
except removed at least four feet (4') from the nearest
patron." (3)
The Nyssa Municipal Court convicted both defendants of 
violating that city code provision.  Defendants appealed those
convictions to the Malheur County Circuit Court, where they
demurred to the charges, asserting that the city ordinance is an
unconstitutional restriction on expression.  The circuit court
denied the demurrers, conducted a trial de novo, convicted
defendants of the violations, and fined them each $185. 
Defendants appealed their convictions to the Court of Appeals. 
In the Court of Appeals, defendants argued that the
city's ordinance requiring entertainers in "live adult
entertainment establishments" to remain four feet away from
patrons impermissibly restricts expression in violation of
Article I, section 8, of the Oregon Constitution and, therefore,
that the circuit court erred in denying their demurrers.  The
city countered that the Court of Appeals recently had decided, in
State v. Ciancanelli, 181 Or App 1, 45 P3d 451 (2002), that nude
dancing is not protected expression under the state constitution. 
The city also argued that the ordinance at issue is not an
impermissible restriction on expression because it does not
prevent or interfere with the dancers' message; rather, the
ordinance is directed at preventing sexual activity and, to that
end, merely imposes a reasonable restriction on conduct. 
Finally, the city argued that the ordinance did not restrict
speech at all, but only restricted conduct.  
The Court of Appeals majority concluded that it need
not decide whether the ordinance in this case restricts
expression or is aimed merely at conduct.  According to the
majority, even if the ordinance were directed at expression, the
ordinance is not unconstitutional, because nude dancing is not
expression protected under Article I, section 8, of the Oregon
Constitution.  In reaching that conclusion, the Court of Appeals
agreed with the city that the court's earlier decision in
Ciancanelli was dispositive.  
In Ciancanelli, the defendants were convicted of, among
other things, violating a state statute, ORS 167.062(3), which
makes it a crime to "direct, manage, finance or present a live
public show in which the participants engage in * * * sexual
conduct."  The defendants in that case had argued that that
statute is unconstitutional because it is directed, by its terms,
at expression.  
In its opinion affirming the defendants' convictions in
Ciancanelli, the Court of Appeals considered the
constitutionality of the statute in light of this court's opinion
in State v. Robertson, 293 Or 402, 649 P2d 569 (1982).  In
Robertson, this court explained that Article I, section 8,
contains a broad prohibition –- "No law shall be passed
restraining the free expression of opinion, or restricting the
right to speak, write, or print freely on any subject whatever,"
together with an exception –- "but every person shall be
responsible for the abuse of this right."  According to the 
court in Robertson, that prohibition "forecloses the enactment of
any law written in terms directed to the substance of any
'opinion' or any 'subject' of communication."  Robertson, 293 Or
at 412.  However, also according to the court, the sweeping
prohibition set out in Article I, section 8, contains an
exception for certain kinds of restrictions on expression.  Under
that exception, a law would survive a constitutional challenge if
"the scope of the restraint [on expression] is wholly confined
within some historical exception that was well established when
the first American guarantees of freedom of expression were
adopted and that the guarantees then or in 1859 demonstrably were
not intended to reach."  Id.  
Using that analytical framework for analyzing Article
I, section 8, cases, the Court of Appeals in Ciancanelli reviewed
the line of laws and cases dating back to the seventeenth century
dealing with public nudity and public sexual conduct, and
concluded that ORS 167.062 falls within a "well-established"
historical exception to the Oregon Constitution's general
prohibition against laws restricting expression.  Id. at 19.  In
light of that conclusion, the Court of Appeals held that,
although the statute at issue is directed at expression, it does
not violate Article I, section 8.  181 Or App at 27.  
In the present case, the Court of Appeals reasoned that
the city's nude dancing ordinance is, for purposes of
constitutional analysis, indistinguishable from the nude dancing
statute at issue in Ciancanelli.  Accordingly, the court
concluded that the Nyssa ordinance likewise does not violate
Article I, section 8, even if it is aimed at expression. 
Dufloth/Smith, 184 Or App at 639.  
Before this court, defendants argue that the ordinance
at issue here is directed at expression and that the Court of
Appeals misapplied the historical exception doctrine announced in
Robertson when it concluded that laws dealing with nude dancing
fall within an historical exception.  Defendants argue that this
court did not intend the "historical exception" to include that
type of restriction on expression; rather, the historical
exception includes only laws against "well-established
conventional crimes," such as forgery, fraud, and perjury.  The
city, for its part, continues to contend that the ordinance's
four-foot rule regulates unprotected conduct and not expression
but that, even if the ordinance were held to restrain expression,
it nonetheless either legitimately focuses on forbidden effects
or falls within the historical exception from Article I, section
8, protection identified by the Court of Appeals in Ciancanelli.  
This court allowed review in Ciancanelli and heard
argument in that case on the same day that we heard oral argument
in the present case.  Our decision in State v. Ciancanelli, ___
Or ___, ___ P3d ___ (decided this date), informs our analysis in
the present case.  Accordingly, we briefly summarize our
conclusions in Ciancanelli.
In Ciancanelli, as in the present case, the parties'
arguments principally concern the correct application of the
Robertson framework to the facts of the case.  On review in this
court in Ciancanelli, however, the state also presented an
argument that the analytical origins of the Robertson framework
were unsound and that this court should jettison Robertson and
reexamine Article I, section 8, using the systematic approach for
analyzing original provisions of the Oregon Constitution that the
court described in Priest v. Pearce, 314 Or 411, 840 P2d 65
(1992).  Under the Priest paradigm, the court searches for the
intent of the people who drafted and adopted the original
provision of the constitution.  In so doing, the court examines
the wording of the constitutional provision, the case law
surrounding it, and the historical circumstances leading to its
adoption.  314 Or at 415-16.
In Ciancanelli, this court agreed to reexamine Article
I, section 8, using the Priest methodology.  We chose to do so,
however, not because we agreed with the state's premise
respecting Robertson's shortcomings -- in fact, we did not agree
with that premise -- but because the state's extensive arguments
respecting Article I, section 8, focused on a part of that
provision that was not central to this court's decision in
Robertson.  Ciancanelli, ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 11).  
In our substantive analysis, we stated that Article I,
section 8, announces a broad and sweeping right of an individual
to free expression.  As we stated in Ciancanelli, the words are
so sweeping, in fact, that "it appears to us to be beyond
reasonable dispute that the protection extends to the kinds of
expression that a majority of citizens in many communities would
dislike -- profanity, blasphemy, pornography -- and even to
physical acts, such as nude dancing or other explicit sexual
conduct, that have an expressive component."  ___ Or at ___ (slip
op at 42).
Analysis of the second part of Article I, section 8,
the so-called "abuse" clause, was more difficult, however.  Based
on the historical evidence, we noted in Ciancanelli that the
framers might have intended that phrase to be construed in either
of two ways:  (1) to convey, on the one hand, that a legislature
has full authority to punish, after the fact, any speech that it
deems to be abusive; or (2) to convey, on the other hand, that a
legislature may punish or interfere with expression only to the
extent that the expression causes injury to the fundamental,
"natural" rights of other individuals.  ___ Or at ___ (slip op at
44).  We further noted that, because there appeared to be no
sound basis for choosing one of those possible meanings over the
other, the state would have to demonstrate that Robertson is
incompatible with both of those possible meanings in order to
meet its burden of showing that the Robertson framework is
contrary to the framers' intent.  ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 45). 
We concluded that the state had not met and could not meet that
burden, because Robertson is fully compatible with the latter,
"natural rights" approach.  Ultimately, we announced that we
would continue to use the Robertson framework to analyze
challenges brought under Article I, section 8.  ___ Or at ___
(slip op at 47-48).
We now turn to the task of applying the Robertson
framework to the issue before us -- namely, whether the city's
four-foot ordinance violates Article I, section 8.  Under that
framework, we first determine whether it is a law directed by its
terms at restraining or restricting speech or expression.   
This court previously has considered whether laws
purporting merely to restrict the manner of expression, without
prohibiting expression entirely, were "directed at expression"
for purposes of an Article I, section 8, analysis.  In City of
Portland v. Tidyman, 306 Or 174, 759 P2d 242 (1988), for example,
this court addressed a zoning ordinance that required "adult"
bookstores to be located at least 500 feet from any residential
zone and, in some cases, at least 1,000 feet from any other adult
business.  The ordinance did not prohibit all adult bookstores
from locating within the city limits, nor did it purport to limit
the content of the printed material for sale in the stores. 
Nonetheless, this court held that, in light of the fact that "the
same structure devoted to essentially the same kind of use,
retailing reading or viewing materials or showing films, becomes
a prohibited use under the ordinance simply because the quantity
of 'adult' merchandise increases from a minor to a 'substantial'
or 'significant' portion," id. at 181, that ordinance was "flatly
directed against one disfavored type of pictorial or verbal
communication."  Id. at 184.  Similarly, in Moser v. Frohnmayer,
315 Or 372, 845 P2d 1284 (1993), this court held that a law that
prohibited the use of "an automatic dialing and announcing device
to solicit the purchase of any realty, goods, or services" was
directed at expression.  The court held that, insofar as the law
was applicable only to those messages soliciting commercial
services or goods but did not apply to any other type of message,
the law "restricts expression because it is directed at a
specific subject of communication, excluding some speech based on
the content of the message."  Id. at 376.  And, finally, in
Ciancanelli, we held that, because the statute at issue there
"prohibits and criminalizes [certain sexual] acts only when they
occur in an expressive context, i.e., in a 'live public show[,]'
* * * we cannot avoid the conclusion that the statute is directed
primarily, if not solely, toward the expressive aspect of the
conduct that it describes.  That is, the statute is one
restraining free expression."  ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 56)
(emphasis in original).  
The ordinance at issue in this case provides that "[n]o
entertainer is permitted to be unclothed or in less than opaque
and complete attire, costume or clothing, so as to expose to view
any portion of * * * [certain body parts], except removed at
least four feet (4') from the nearest patron."  NCC §
5.10.130(17).  "Entertainer" is a defined term and means "any
person who provides live adult entertainment within an adult
concession."  Id., § 5.10.020(5).  "Live adult entertainment"
means "any exhibition, performance or dance of any type which
contains * * * any display of specified anatomical areas,"
including, among other things, less than completely or opaquely
covered buttocks and breasts.  Id., § 5.10.020(2)(b); § 5.10.020(13).  In addition, the ordinance specifically excludes
from the scope of its reach, among other things, plays, operas,
musicals, classes, seminars, exhibitions and performances that
are "not obscene."  NCC § 5.10.150(1).  Thus, by its terms, the
ordinance applies only to one disfavored type of communication 
(nude performances) in one disfavored type of establishment (one
that regularly features that type of entertainment).  In that
way, it is indistinguishable from the laws and ordinances at
issue in Tidyman, Moser, and Ciancanelli, all of which this court
held to be directed at expression.  We hold that Nyssa City Code,
section 5.10.130(17), restrains free expression. 
Having concluded that the city's four-foot ordinance is
directed by its terms at expression, we turn to consider whether
it nonetheless is permissible because it is "wholly confined
within some historical exception that was well established when
the first American guarantees of freedom of expression were
adopted and that the guarantees then or in 1859 demonstrably were
not intended to reach."  Robertson, 293 Or at 412.  As noted, the
Court of Appeals concluded that the city's rule falls within the
same "well-established" exception that it had found and on which
it relied in its Ciancanelli decision -- an exception for laws
regulating public sexual conduct.  City of Nyssa, 184 Or App at
638 (citing historical exception analysis in Ciancanelli, 181 Or
App at 16-19).  
However, this court today has rejected the Court of
Appeals' Ciancanelli decision, including its conclusion that
there is a well-established historical exception within the
meaning of the Robertson framework for laws regulating live
public shows involving displays of nudity and sexuality. 
Ciancanelli, ___ Or at ___ (slip of at 58-59). (4)  The city
does not suggest any other basis for finding the present law to
fall within a historical exception to the prohibition of Article
I, section 8, and we find none.  
In summary, we conclude that Nyssa City Code, section
5.10.130(17), is a law that is directed by its terms and in its
actual focus on restraining a particular variety of expression,
and that it does not fall within any well-established historical
exception to the prohibition against such laws in Article I,
section 8.  It is unconstitutional on its face.  Accordingly,
defendants' convictions for violating the ordinance must be
reversed. (5) 
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The
judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the case is
remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings.
DE MUNIZ, J., dissenting
For many of the reasons expressed in my dissent in
State v. Ciancanelli, 339 Or ___, ___ P3d ___ (2005), I also
dissent in this case.  Specifically, I would conclude, on two
grounds, that the ordinance at issue in this case is not
unconstitutional under the State v. Robertson, 293 Or 402, 649
P2d 569 (1983) framework.  First, the ordinance does not
constrain either the subject or the content of nude dancing. 
Limiting proximity of the dancers is simply not limiting
expression.
Second, the four-foot proximity ordinance focuses
legitimately on forbidden effects.  The Nyssa City Council has
legislatively determined that "[t]he regulation of distances at
which live performances occur from the patrons [is] directed at
the elimination of sexual conduct or other adverse secondary
effects, unrelated to the protected expression of the performer." 
In my view, the proximity ordinance is tailored to address an
effect (sexual conduct or harm to dancers) rather than an
expression of opinion.
I therefore respectfully dissent.
1. 
Article I, section 8, provides:
"No law shall be passed restraining the free
expression of opinion, or restricting the right to
speak, write, or print freely on any subject whatever;
but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of
this right."  
2. 
Since the time of defendants' arrest, the City of Nyssa
has amended the applicable city code provisions in ways that do
not affect our analysis in this case.  
3. 
"Adult concession" is defined as, among other things, a
"live adult entertainment establishment."  NCC § 5.10.020(1).  A
"live adult entertainment establishment" is defined, in turn, as:
"any building or portion of a building to which any
member of the public is invited or admitted and where
any employee or entertainer, on a regular basis or as a
substantial part of the premises activity, conducts
live adult entertainment."  
NCC § 5.10.020(3).  In addition, "entertainer" is defined as "any
person who provides live adult entertainment within an adult
concession as defined in this Section whether or not a fee is
charged or accepted for entertainment."  NCC 5.10.020(5). 
"Live adult entertainment" means: 
"any exhibition, performance or dance of any type which
contains:
"* * * * * 
"(b) any display of specified anatomical areas."  
NCC § 5.10.020(2).  Finally, "specified anatomical areas" is
defined to include, among other things, less than completely or
opaquely covered buttocks and breasts.  NCC § 5.10.020(13).  
4. 
We explained in Ciancanelli that, contrary to the Court
of Appeals' view, a historical exception cannot be established
with respect to laws directed at regulating the portrayal of
sexual matters merely by showing that similar regulations were
longstanding at the time of the adoption of Article I, section 8,
and continued to exist in Oregon after the adoption of that
provision, if those historical criminal prohibitions were
directed exclusively at protecting the hearer or the viewer from
a disfavored message.  Id. at ___ (slip op at 52-53, 58-59).  
5. 
As this court pointed out in Ciancanelli, the
legislature constitutionally may enact laws designed to prohibit
or punish conduct that amounts to prostitution or other criminal
activity, but Article I, section 8, precludes the legislature
from using limitations on speech or expression as a substitute
for regulating that conduct directly.  ___ Or at ___ n 31 (slip
op at 58-59 n 31).  In the present case, the city
constitutionally can regulate such conduct as sexual contact
between performers and patrons, and the fact that an individual
uses speech or expression in the course of that conduct would not
immunize the individual from prosecution.  However, that is not
what the ordinance at issue here does.  The four-foot ordinance
does not specifically preclude or even refer to sexual contact
between performers and patrons.  Rather, as discussed, it simply
restrains certain kinds of expression in certain kinds of
establishments.