WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a fitting end to an anti-adult business ordinance case that's dragged on for more than ten years, the U.S. Supreme Court today refused to accept certiorari in the case of City of Indianapolis v. Annex Books, et al. The city had appealed a 2009 Seventh Circuit ruling that invalidated a revision to a 2003 zoning law. That revision, which was in effect from 2003 to 2009, would have closed adult businesses daily between the hours of midnight and 10 a.m., as well as all day Sundays. Besides Annex Books, Keystone Video and News, Lafayette Video & News, and the now-defunct New Flicks were parties to the lawsuit.
The ruling is another feather in the cap of prominent First Amendment attorney J. Michael Murray, who represented Annex Books before a Seventh Circuit panel headed by Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook.
"The 2003 revision ... closes all businesses after midnight and on Sundays, and requires bright interior lights when the businesses are open," Easterbrook wrote in his appeals decision. "None of the studies on which the City relied before enacting the law, and none introduced in this record, concerns that kind of ordinance. Nor do the studies show that an increase in adult businesses' operating hours is associated with more crime; the studies are simple cross-sectional analyses that leave causation up in the air. (In other words, they may show no more than that adult businesses prefer high-crime districts where rents are lower.) ... Until the 2003 amendments, these stores were treated the same as Barnes & Noble or Blockbuster Video. If they were associated with significant crime or disorderly conduct, it should be easy for Indianapolis to show it. But the City has not offered an iota of evidence to that effect."
Apparently, the city continued trying to provide such evidence right up until January of this year, but it still failed to convince the Seventh Circuit—and in its Supreme Court appeal, the city claimed that the Seventh Circuit's decision "threatens to increase litigation dramatically in that it imposes a much higher burden of proof on municipalities and contravenes previously uniform circuit precedent upholding hours of operation regulations."
Translation: The appeals panel actually looked at the evidence—or lack thereof—that was presented instead of simply accepting the claims of the city's attorneys. Plus, it took seriously the study done by sociologist Dr. Daniel Linz, who had examined several "secondary effects" studies that had been relied upon by federal courts for years—including one done in Indianapolis in 1984—and had shown that the vast majority of them had been based on faulty evidence.
Needless to say, Murray was pleased with the high court's decision.
"We're very, very pleased that the Supreme Court did not see fit to review the well-reasoned opinion of the 7th Circuit," Murray told the IndyStar.com news site.
What the city was really worried about, however, was one of the "secondary effects" of its bogus law, attorneys' fees, as well as possibly millions of dollars in damages due the bookstores for their four years of reduced hours or operation.
"The city said in its Supreme Court appeal that it could be hit with a multimillion-dollar claim unless the Supreme Court sided with the city," IndyStar.com reported. "The city has estimated that damages could exceed $1 million because of how long the case has been pending and because the adult bookstores will be entitled to be reimbursed for their legal fees."
(h/t Howard "How Appealing" Bashman)
