''Erie v. Pap's A. M.'', 529 U.S. 277 (2000), was a

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by the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

regarding nude dancing as free speech. The court held that an ordinance banning public nudity did not violate the operator of a totally nude entertainment establishment's constitutional right to free speech..

Prior history

On September 28, 1994, the city council of Erie, Pennsylvania, enacted Ordinance 75–1994, a public indecency ordinance that makes it a summary offense to knowingly or intentionally appear in public in a "state of nudity."Ordinance 75-1994, City of Erie, Pennsylvania The respondent, Pap's, a Pennsylvania corporation, operated an establishment in Erie known as "Kandyland" that featured totally nude erotic dancing performed by women. To comply with the ordinance, these dancers would need to wear, at a minimum, pasties and a G-string. On October 14, 1994, two days after the ordinance went into effect, Pap's filed a complaint against the city of Erie, the mayor (Joyce Savacchio), city solicitor (Gregory A. Karle), and members of the city council, seeking declaratory relief and a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the ordinance. The Court of Common Pleas struck down the ordinance as unconstitutional, but the Commonwealth Court reversed the decision. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in turn reversed the Commonwealth Court, finding that the ordinance's public nudity section was an unconstitutional violation of Pap's First Amendment rights.

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was granted on appeal from the State Supreme Court.

Case

Mootness

The Court proceeded to the merits despite a possible mootness issue. While the case was pending, Pap's A.M. went out of business, meaning that no concrete private rights were left to litigate. Despite going out of business, the Supreme Court still proceeded to decide the case on the merits because 1) the City of Erie was suffering an "ongoing injury" and 2) Pap's was still incorporated and could potentially go back into business.

Rules of law

The Court found the following rules of law to apply: *Being in a state of nudity is not an inherently expressive condition. Totally nude erotic dancing is expressive conduct, although it falls only within the outer ambit of the protection of the First Amendment to the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven ar ...

. *Government restrictions on public nudity that ban all public nudity should be evaluated under the framework set forth in ''United States v. O'Brien'' for content-neutral restrictions on symbolic speech. *While the doctrinal theories behind incidental burdens and secondary effects are, of course, not identical, there is nothing objectionable about a city passing a general ordinance to ban public nudity, even though such a ban may place incidental burdens on some protected speech, and at the same time recognizing that one specific occurrence of public nudity, nude erotic dancing, is particularly problematic because it produces harmful secondary effects. *For purposes of analysis under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, even if a regulation has an incidental effect on some speakers or messages but not others, the regulation is content neutral if it can be justified without reference to the content of the expression.

Test

After determining that the ordinance was content neutral, the Court then applied the ''O'Brien'' test. The first factor of the ''O'Brien'' test for evaluating restrictions on symbolic speech is whether the government regulation is within the constitutional power of the government to enact. The second factor of the ''O'Brien'' test for evaluating restrictions on symbolic speech is whether the regulation furthers an important or substantial government interest. The third ''O'Brien'' factor is that the government interest must be unrelated to the suppression of free expression. The fourth and final ''O'Brien'' factor is that the restriction be no greater than is essential to the furtherance of the government interest. The court found that the ordinance met all four factors of the ''O'Brien'' test, and that a "least restrictive means" analysis was not necessary. The Court reversed the decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and found the ordinance to be constitutional.

Aftermath

The effects of this case reach beyond simple restriction of nudity. The majority opinion noted:

Concurrence

Justice Antonin Scalia, Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Thomas, agreed that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision must be reversed, but disagreed with the mode of analysis that should be applied.

References

External links

* {{US1stAmendment, speech United States Supreme Court cases United States Free Speech Clause case law 1994 in United States case law 2000 in United States case law History of Erie, Pennsylvania Legal history of Pennsylvania 2000 in Pennsylvania Strip clubs United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court