The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear five cases which challenge varied limits on nude dancing, said David Hudson of the First Amendment Center.
The Court rejected hearing two Washington state cases, two Tennessee cases, and an Alabama case. They all featured challenges to a variety of local or state laws affecting nude dancing, including several alleging buffers between dancers and customers broke First Amendment expression rights, Hudson said.
He said the Court's refusal to hear them may have stemmed from the Erie v. PAP's A.M. ruling in the last week of March, in which the Court ruled Erie's public nudity ban was content-neutral.
First Amendment attorney Luke Lirot in Tampa, Fla., wasn't surprised by the Court's refusal to hear the other five cases. "The court definitely overlooked a lot of arguments in the PAP's case," said Lirot, who represented adult businesses in one of the cases, Sammy's of Mobile, Ltd. v. City of Mobile. "It was truly disappointing."
Bradley Shafer, representing Déjà Vu in Déjà vu of Nashville, Inc. v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville, said he was surprised, however. "We had put before the Court the exact evidence that the court said in (Erie) was necessary to litigate the issue of whether adult businesses cause secondary effects," he said, adding his clients would file a motion for the Court to reconsider.
The majority Erie opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor decided the law citing crime and other alleged "secondary effects of adult entertainment" - which First Amendment attorney John Weston has said to AVN might yet leave openings for challenges to such local laws.
Justice David Souter, in fact, had written a concurring opinion in which he said Erie hadn't proven, and didn't have the chance to prove, the secondary effects concern. Weston cited that opinion especially as the opening for future challenges.
