Posts under ‘First Amendment’

Today the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued this opinion.
The case, styled Flava Works, Inc. v. City of Miami, concerns “CocoDorm.com, which operates an internet-based website of the same name. The CocoDorm website transmits images, via webcam, of the residents of 503 Northeast 27th Street, Miami, Florida, over the internet.” The question is whether Flava Works [...]

“The Show Me state is headed for a showdown over a move to rein in the adult-entertainment industry at a time when every job counts—even those of strippers,” reports Joe Barrett for the WSJ.com here.  According to the article, Missouri’s “Republican-controlled legislature [recently] passed one of the nation’s toughest state laws aimed at strip clubs and other adult-entertainment venues. It [...]

The City of Laguna Beach has an amplified sound ordinance, which bans the use of a bullhorn (a) within 100 yards of a school 30 minutes before or after the dismissal bell, and (b) within 100 yards of City Hall.
The law is being challenged. In this opinion, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the plaintiffs [...]

I’m a fan of Mad Men. Friends got me hooked; NetFlix feeds my fix.
How would Don Draper and the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency handle these industry issues?

Stripper mobile grinds to a halt
Appeals court reinstates limits on brothel ads

I’m not sure what Don & Co. would do. I bet they’d smoke a little. Drink a little. Repeat. Then craft a solution [...]

This case requires us to resolve an interesting and surprisingly unanswered question of First Amendment law: whether the constitutionality of a zoning ordinance should only be evaluated with regard to the “alternative avenues of communication” it leaves open at the time it is passed, or also those it leaves open at the time it is [...]

“Outrage over a 20-foot, anatomically correct stallion outside a strip club in rural northern Mississippi could lead to a new law allowing counties to regulate such establishments,” begins this article by Shelia Byrd in BusinessWeek. According to the article, the bill would give Mississippi’s 82 counties the option to draft regulations for strip clubs that [...]

Location schmocation.
A couple of items in the news. First, a provocative piece from the talented David Hudson of the First Amendment Center, entitled “Obscenity online: Do we need a national standard?”
Second, the Iowa Court of Appeals delivered this decision yesterday. Iowa charged Clarence Judy, owner of a strip club in Hamburg, Iowa, with three counts of public indecent [...]

Today the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an obscenity conviction but …
The trial of Paul F. Little a.k.a. Max Hardcore included allegations of (1) improper comments by the government during closing argument; (2) improper jury instructions; (3) improper handling of juror irregularities; (4) failure of the judge to recuse herself; and (5) errors in sentencing. [...]

A pair of decisions to start the week.
“The town of Clarksville’s legal case against Theatair X was dismissed Monday as a judge ruled the town’s ordinance is not valid and therefore cannot be enforced,” reports the NewsAndTribune.com (which, oddly enough, is a “.net” Web site)  here. The Clarksville Town Court held that the ordinance regulating sexually oriented businesses [...]

Taking her cue from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in an order issued last week from the U.S. District Court (Southern Disitrct of Indiana), Judge Sarah Evans Barker writes:
[I]n order to satisfy the burden explicated by the Seventh Circuit, the City must essentially make two showings: first, that adult entertainment businesses lacking facilities for [...]