Court Opinion

ID: 9666722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:26:19.35254+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:32.362990
License: Public Domain

GARDEBRING, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the ordinances at issue here do not violate Art. 1, § 3 of the Minnesota Constitution.1 In this opinion, the majority adopts a test for limiting free speech which is a staggering departure from our history of providing significant protection of individual rights under the state constitution. To reach this result, the majority misreads the ordinances at issue, ignores the record below, and substitutes its own moral judgment for legal or constitutional analysis. I offer this analysis as an alternative.
We must first determine whether the ordinances here even implicate the free speech provisions of the Minnesota Constitution.2 *171Looking first to the status of nude dancing under the federal constitution, one finds that the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that nude dancing is expression entitled to some First Amendment protection. Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 501 U.S. 560, 566, 111 S.Ct. 2456, 2460, 115 L.Ed.2d 504 (1991) (nude dancing is protected expression within the “outer perimeters of the First Amendment”); Schad v. Borough of Mount Ephraim, 452 U.S. 61, 65, 101 S.Ct. 2176, 2179, 68 L.Ed.2d 671 (1981); Doran v. Salem Inn. Inc., 422 U.S. 922, 932, 95 S.Ct. 2561, 2568, 45 L.Ed.2d 648 (1975), California v. LaRue, 409 U.S. 109, 118, 93 S.Ct. 390, 397, 34 L.Ed.2d 342 (1972); see also 4 Ronald D. Rotunda & John E. Nowak, Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure § 20.61(1) (2d ed. 1992) [hereinafter Rotunda & Nowak]. Live performances and dance are afforded broad First Amendment protection. Schad, 452 U.S. at 65, 101 S.Ct. at 2180-81, LaRue, 409 U.S. at 130, 93 S.Ct. at 403 (Marshall, J. dissenting). Furthermore, nudity alone does not place otherwise protected expression outside of the protection of the First Amendment. Jenkins v. Georgia, 418 U.S. 153, 161, 94 S.Ct. 2750, 2755, 41 L.Ed.2d 642 (1974). I therefore conclude, consistent with the United States Supreme Court’s view, that the city ordinances in this case implicate speech protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Turning to the Minnesota Constitution, this court has not previously considered whether nude dancing is protected expression under the Minnesota Constitution; however, we generally look to the federal constitution to define the parameters of the state constitution’s free speech protections. See State v. Davidson, 481 N.W.2d 51, 57 (Minn. 1992). In this context, I see no reason to depart from the United States Supreme Court’s view of free speech protections, nor has the majority offered one.3 We have never held that our state constitution’s free speech protections are narrower than the protections provided by the First Amendment of the federal constitution, and, to the extent that the majority opinion so holds, it is a significant departure from our previous view of the Minnesota Constitution. I therefore conclude that non-obscene nude dancing is protected expression under Art. I, § 3 of the Minnesota Constitution.4
However, even where speech is protected by constitutional provisions, some regulation of that speech may be constitutionally allowed. The city argues that its inherent police power provides a sufficient basis for the regulation of the expressive conduct at issue here. The question then is whether the level of regulation contained in the city ordi*172nances, supported by the city’s police power, may stand when considered in light of Art. 1, § 3 of the Minnesota Constitution. I conclude that it does not survive that examination.
I agree with the majority’s assertion that the government may impose valid time, place or manner limitations on protected expressive conduct. But, while the majority endorses the idea of time, place or manner limitations, it ignores both the underlying principle and the framework for analyzing such limitations. The cases which discuss such restrictions begin with the notion that they must be content-neutral.5 Furthermore, the Supreme Court has set out a framework for analyzing time, place and manner restrictions as they apply to expressive conduct under the United States Constitution in United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968). The majority apparently rejects this framework, but provides no explicit alternative test for determining the constitutionality of time, place and manner restrictions under the Minnesota Constitution’s free speech provision. The only standard which can be discerned from the majority opinion may be expressed in this way: protected speech in Minnesota may be prohibited if a court can conclude, without any evidentiary basis, that a legislative body “may have felt” the speech was:
1. “offensive to community standards,”
2. “a subliminal endorsement for unlawful [behavior],” or
3. “socially and morally unacceptable.”
Examining these justifications more closely, it becomes clear that use of these “interests” to support a restriction on protected speech, even speech only marginally protected, will wreak havoc with our free speech jurisprudence and will make the Minnesota Constitution largely irrelevant to the ongoing debate on the parameters of free speech in this country. Such vague and ill-defined standards, furthermore, are clearly content-based, and could be read to allow the most blatant forms of political censorship, based on the government’s perceived sense of “community standards” or “social acceptability.” The rule of law announced today may not appear dangerous to a free society when applied to nude dancing, but it is no less available in the constitutional analysis of other types of speech. The majority, with scant analysis, has abandoned a worthy history of providing significant protection for individual rights under the state’s constitution and approved an unprecedented and frightening approach to free speech analysis.
The fact that protected speech may be “offensive to community standards” or “morally and socially unacceptable” has never before justified government restrictions on protected speech, and has been rejected as a basis for such restrictions. As this court stated in its decision in Matter of Welfare of R.A.V., 464 N.W.2d 507 (Minn.1991), rev’d on
other grounds, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 2538,
120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992): “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” Id. at 511 (citing Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989)). In fact, the free speech protections in our state and federal constitutions are never more important than when unpopular speech is at issue. If enforcing vaguely defined “community standards” or avoiding “socially unacceptable” speech were substantial governmental' interests, then the Supreme Court would surely have upheld restrictions on flag burning. See id. If we as a people could constitutionally prohibit protected speech because it offends our community standards, surely a city with a large Jewish population, including several thou*173sand survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, could constitutionally prohibit a march by a Nazi party. See Collin v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1197 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 916, 99 S.Ct. 291, 58 L.Ed.2d 264 (1978).
Furthermore, the ordinances fail even under the majority’s “standard,” based on the record below and the findings of fact made by the trial court. There is nothing at all in the record of the adoption of these ordinances to suggest that the city of Coates considered any of these identified “governmental interests” or heard any evidence related to them. Not only has the majority invented amorphous and ill-conceived bases on which the city might have acted, in order to apply them in this case, it must overlook the specific findings of fact of the trial court. Not only has the majority become an “appellate fact-finder,” it has done so without any support in the underlying record.
While I do not suggest that we blindly follow federal constitutional jurisprudence, in other cases where we have chosen to depart from federal constitutional analysis in interpreting parallel provisions of our state constitution, we based our departure upon a close analysis of both state and federal law, and we have articulated a clear justification for our departure.6 An examination of this case in light of the O’Brien test exposes the fundamental weaknesses of the majority’s test, or lack of a test, and the danger of departing from federal caselaw without a clear justification for doing so. Under O’Brien.
[A] government regulation is sufficiently justified [1] if it is within the constitutional power of the Government; [2] if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; [3] if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and [4] if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest.
Id, at 377, 88 S.Ct. at 1679.
If one applies settled free speech principles as set out in O’Brien to the record before us, the ordinances at issue clearly fail and are therefore not a valid exercise of the city’s police power. First, as discussed above, the hypothetical “substantial governmental interests” identified by the majority are supported neither by the record nor by federal First Amendment law; thus, the ordinances cannot satisfy the second part of the O’Brien test.
Next, even if I accepted that the interests asserted either by the parties7 or by the majority were important or substantial governmental interests, the record in this case shows that they are not unrelated to the suppression of free expression and therefore fail the third part of the O’Brien test. This conclusion alone should invalidate the ordinances regardless of the test employed, unless this court wishes to depart from established federal free speech jurisprudence which allows content-based restrictions only if the content of the speech is outside the ambit of the First Amendment. See, supra, note 5. An examination of the text of the ordinances and the history of their adoption reveals that their enunciated purpose was to suppress expressive conduct. Although the majority’s analysis overlooks the provision, the section of the ordinance labelled, “Purpose” states that “it is in the best interest of the public health, safety and general welfare of the people of the City of Coates that certain types of entertainment, as hereinaf*174ter set forth, he prohibited upon the premises of licensed liquor and beer establishments.” It is thus plain from the face of the ordinances that they were aimed at restricting entertainment. The record also reveals that the ordinances were enacted in response to complaints from members of the community to “put a stop” to nude dancing occurring at one local bar. The city introduced no evidence at trial that there was any other purpose or intent behind the ordinances, and the trial court found that the ordinances were aimed at prohibiting nude dancing. Where, as here, a municipality enacts an ordinance targeted at one business owner providing “entertainment” protected by the free speech provisions of the state and federal constitutions, albeit marginally so, I conclude that the ordinances are related to the suppression of free expression. It is disingenuous for the majority to now assert other, hypothetical purposes for the ordinances to find them constitutional.
The ordinances also fail the fourth part of the O’Brien test, that the restriction on speech be an “incidental” restriction no greater than is essential to furtherance of the governmental interest. The ordinances contain an absolute prohibition of the expressive conduct of nude dancing. As such, they cannot be an incidental restriction. The city has several other, less restrictive means of controlling nude dancing and other forms of adult entertainment. For example, the city may, consistent with the First Amendment, use zoning laws to either concentrate or disperse such businesses. Young v. American Mini Theaters, 427 U.S. 50, 96 S.Ct. 2440, 49 L.Ed.2d 310 (1976); City of Renton v. Playtime Theaters, 475 U.S. 41, 106 S.Ct. 925, 89 L.Ed.2d 29 (1986).
While the majority rejects the O’Brien test, it instead relies on a recent plurality decision of the Supreme Court upholding Indiana’s state public indecency statute as applied to nude dancing. Barnes v. Glen Theater, Inc., 501 U.S. 560, 111 S.Ct. 2456, 115 L.Ed.2d 504 (1991). Indiana had adopted a public nudity statute prohibiting “knowingly or intentionally” appearing nude in “a public place.” Id. at 569, 111 S.Ct. at 2462. The Supreme Court, with no majority opinion, reversed the Seventh Circuit’s en banc holding that the statute was unconstitutional because its purpose was to prevent the message of eroticism and sexuality the dancers conveyed. Id. at 565, 111 S.Ct. at 2459-60.
The Supreme Court analyzed Barnes under the very O’Brien framework the majority rejects. Using the O’Brien test, the three-judge plurality reasoned that an important governmental interest of protecting order and morality was legitimately furthered by an overall ban on public nudity, not limited to nude expression. Id. at 571-72, 111 S.Ct. at 2463. The history of the Indiana statute showed that it followed a long line of state statutes banning all public nudity, and that it predated barroom nude dancing and was enacted as a general prohibition. Id., at 568, 111 S.Ct. at 2461.
The remainder of the majority was comprised of Justice Scalia and Justice Souter, each of whom wrote separately and concurred in the judgment, but not in its reasoning. Justice Scalia wrote that the statute was not subject to First Amendment scrutiny at all because it was a “general law regulating conduct and not specifically directed at expression.” Id. Justice Souter agreed that nude dancing is protected expression and that it should be analyzed under O’Brien. He differed in the governmental interest which he deemed sufficient to justify the statute, disagreeing with the plurality on “the possible sufficiency of society’s moral views to justify the limitations at issue,” but finding “the State’s substantial interest in combating the secondary effects of adult entertainment establishments of the sort typified by respondent’s establishments” to be a sufficient interest. Id., 501 U.S. at 582, 111 S.Ct. at 2468.
None of the bases articulated for upholding the Indiana statute are applicable to this case. The reasoning of the plurality opinion and Justice Scalia’s concurrence turns on the terms of the Indiana statute, which was a general prohibition on public nudity, not just a limit on public nude expression. Justice Scalia also noted that “[wjhere the government prohibits conduct precisely because of its communicative attributes, we hold the *175regulation unconstitutional.” Id., 501 U.S. at 577, 111 S.Ct. at 2466. The Coates ordinances at issue here were found by the trial court to be specifically aimed at nude expression, and are clearly not of a “general” nature, nor directed broadly to public nudity. The majority concedes as much when it states that it “construe[s] the ordinance to apply to nude entertaining in bars.” The nature of the ordinances in this ease places them outside both the plurality holding and Justice Sealia’s concurrence.8 The Coates City Council enacted its ordinances in order to stop a protected activity at one bar in response to complaints from members of the community. The ordinances fail to meet the O’Brien tests and nothing in Barnes alters that result.
The fault in the majority’s analysis in this case becomes further evident when one considers its approach to Knudtson’s over-breadth argument. For overbreadth purposes, the majority holds that the ordinance is not overbroad because it construes it as applying “to nude entertaining in bars.” With its reliance on the narrow scope of the ordinances for overbreadth purposes, the majority directly contradicts its reliance on Barnes which upheld the state statute because it was a general prohibition of all public nudity and not targeted at expressive conduct.
It may be that the citizens of Coates are offended by nude dancing at Jake’s Bar. It may be that the elected officials of Coates think that such dancing is “morally and socially unacceptable.” The fact that the moral judgments expressed by the ordinances may be commonplace does not end our inquiry. The Constitution
is made for people of fundamentally differing views, and the accident of our finding certain opinions natural and familiar or novel and shocking ought not to conclude our judgment upon the question whether the statutes embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States.
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 117, 93 S.Ct. 705, 709, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973) (quoting Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 76, 25 S.Ct. 539, 547, 49 L.Ed. 937 (1905) (Holmes dissenting). We may find the sentiments of the Coates city council “natural and familiar;” we may even agree with them. But for those sentiments to become a constitutionally-approved basis for the prohibition of protected speech is a staggering departure from prior free speech jurisprudence, and bodes ill for the development of state constitutional law in Minnesota. I dissent.

. I concur with the portion of the opinion that holds that the state’s power to regulate the sale of liquor under the Twenty-first Amendment does not limit the free speech protections of our state constitution. However, I note an apparent inconsistency in the reasoning of the majority opinion. While the majority concludes that the Twenty-first Amendment's grant of authority does not limit our free speech provisions, its reasoning as to the impact of the police power on protected speech turns significantly on the presence of liquor at the location of the nude dancing.

. It is important to note that, despite the majority's distaste for nude dancing, this case does not involve obscenity. Neither the city nor the amici argue that the dancing at issue is obscene, and if it were obscene it would, of course, not be protected speech. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973).-’ We have previously upheld a criminal statute banning obscenity against a free speech challenge under both the federal and state constitutions. Minn. Stat. § 617.241 (1992); State v. Davidson, 481 N.W.2d 51, 55, 58 (Minn.1992). Therefore, any suggestion that this case involves obscenity or any reliance on the Miller obscenity standards in deciding this case, as the majority has done, is inappropriate.

. Some citizens of the city, and indeed perhaps the members of the majority, may find the type of nude dancing that occurs in licensed liquor establishments more offensive than nude dancing which is part of a more socially accepted artistic performance. I do not believe, however, that the free speech guarantee in our state constitution permits a distinction between protected expression performed as part of a play or a ballet and the same expression in a bar where alcoholic beverages are served. Both are protected speech under our state constitution. See Commonwealth v. Sees, 374 Mass. 532, 373 N.E.2d 1151, 1155 (1978). "[I]t is largely because governmental officials cannot make principled decisions in this area that the Constitution leaves matters of taste and style so largely to the individual.” Morris v. Municipal Court for San Jose-Milpitas, 32 Cal.3d 553, 186 Cal.Rptr. 494, 652 P.2d 51, 53 (1982).

. This conclusion is consistent with our statement in Koppinger v. City of Fairmont that nudity in the proper context may be a form of expression protected by the First Amendment. 311 Minn. 186, 248 N.W.2d 708 (1976). Many other state courts have also held that nude dancing is protected expression. See Mickens v. City of Kodiak, 640 P.2d 818 (Alaska 1982); Dydyn v. Department of Liquor Control, 12 Conn.App. 455, 531 A.2d 170 (1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 977, 108 S.Ct. 1272, 99 L.Ed.2d 483 (1988); City of Daytona Beach v. Del Percio, 476 So.2d 197 (Fla.1985); Gravely v. Bacon, 263 Ga. 203, 429 S.E.2d 663 (1993); Harris v. Entertainment Sys., 259 Ga. 701, 386 S.E.2d 140 (1989); Cabaret Enter., Inc. v. Alcoholic Beverages Control Comm'n, 393 Mass. 13, 468 N.E.2d 612 (1984); Commonwealth v. Sees, 374 Mass. 532, 373 N.E.2d 1151 (1978); City of Billings v. Laedeke, 247 Mont. 151, 805 P.2d 1348 (1991); Nall v. Baca, 95 N.M. 783, 626 P.2d 1280 (1981); Bellanca v. New York State Liquor Auth., 50 N.Y.2d 524, 429 N.Y.S.2d 616, 407 N.E.2d 460 (1980), rev'd, 452 U.S. 714, 101 S.Ct. 2599, 69 L.Ed.2d 357 (1981), 54 N.Y.2d 228, 445 N.Y.S.2d 87, 429 N.E.2d 765 (1981) (on remand), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 1006, 102 S.Ct. 2296, 73 L.Ed.2d 1300 (1982); Sekne v. City of Portland, 81 Or.App. 630, 726 P.2d 959 (1986), rev. denied, 302 Or. 615, 733 P.2d 450 (1987).

. “[A]bove all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” Police Dep’t of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 2290, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972). See also Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 24, 91 S.Ct. 1780, 1787-88, 29 L.Ed.2d 284 (1971); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 269-70, 84 S.Ct. 710, 720-21, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964); NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 444-45, 83 S.Ct. 328, 343-44, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (1963); Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 4, 69 S.Ct. 894, 895-96, 93 L.Ed. 1131 (1949); see also Rotunda & Nowak, supra § 20.47 at 296 (citing federal cases).

. See, e.g., State v. Russell, 477 N.W.2d 886, 887-89 (Minn.1991) (discussion of the federal rational basis test, precedent in state law for application of a different test under the state constitution, and reasons for applying a more stringent standard for reviewing challenged classifications under the state equal protection provision); State v. Hershberger, 462 N.W.2d 393, 397-98 (Minn.), vacated, 495 U.S. 901, 110 S.Ct. 1918, 109 L.Ed.2d 282 (1990) (noting that language in the Minnesota Constitution regarding freedom of expression is "distinctively stronger” than the federal counterpart, but stating that federal law may provide guidance for balancing governmental interests and individual rights under the state constitution).

. Counsel for the city identified a set of governmental interests which are different from those asserted in the majority opinion. The city's asserted interests are: to prevent "the public degradation and debasement of the individual performers,” "to prevent the commercial exploitation of sex,” to prevent "acts of rape, prostitution, and other disruptive and disorderly acts attendant thereto” and to maintain "the integrity of the family.”

. Nor is there support for the city’s position in Justice Souter's reasoning. The legally significant difference between the plurality opinion and Justice Souter’s concurrence is the governmental interest found sufficient to support the limitation on speech. Int'l Eateries of Am. v. Broward County, 941 F.2d 1157, 1160 (11th Cir.1991). Justice Souter did not agree with the plurality that a general governmental interest in "protecting order and morality” was sufficient. To fall under his holding, we would have to find that secondary effects of nude dancing justify the city’s ordinances in this case.
The test for secondary effects noted by Justice Souter was that enunciated by the Court in City of Renton, 475 U.S. 41, 106 S.Ct. 925. In Ren-ton, the Court held that the city could rely on the experience of Seattle and other cities, and on the detailed findings summarized in a Washington Supreme Court opinion in enacting its adult zoning ordinance. Id. at 51, 106 S.Ct. at 930-31. Justice Souter referred to this holding in Barnes and stated that a city may rely on the experiences of other cities demonstrating the harmful effect of adult entertainment. Barnes, 501 U.S. at 583-84, 111 S.Ct. at 2469. The facts regarding the adoption of the Coates ordinances are very different. There is nothing in the record to show that the council enacted the ordinances out of concern for any secondary effects, or that the city council considered any other city's experience. The trial court found as a fact that no evidence was presented showing any increase in crime in an around the bar had occurred or that any "sexual improprieties” had occurred as a result of the dancing.