A district judge here will decide within a week whether Thompson's ban on nude dancing is unconstitutional. The ban was voted into law by citizens last summer.
A move to throw the case out was filed earlier this month, claiming the law made 10 infringements on the First Amendment. The ban was aimed at stopping dancers at the Tassels Nite Club from performing completely nude. Attorney William McKechnie believes voters caved in to pressure from "a few vocal citizens" when they approved the ban.
Lucinda Schumacher, who owns Tassels, was charged with breaking the law four times in February, according to the Grand Forks Herald. She pled not guilty March 12. But two days later, District Judge Lawrence Jahnke handed down a gag order to block attorneys on both sides from talking to the press.
He questioned the attorneys April 19, trading information on previous Supreme Court rulings on nude dancing - including another North Dakota case, Olson v. Fargo, which ended nude dancing in West Fargo in 1981.
But the Herald said Jahnke's decision in the current case may well hinge on guidelines put down in another case, U.S. v. O'Brien, which says the constitutionality of nude dancing laws is determined by four criteria known popularly as the "four-prong O'Brien test": symbolic speech can't be restricted unless "sufficiently justified within constitutional power of government; unless it furthers an important or substantial government interest; unless that interest is unrelated to suppressing free expression"; and if its "incidental restriction" on the First Amendment isn't "greater than essential to protect that interest."
McKechnie argued the Thompson law isn't aimed at "general negative effects," but solely at erotic dancing for its own sake. But Thompson argued the law was aimed at "negative secondary effects," like prostitution, sexual assault, and other criminal activity.
