The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that a woman being topless or otherwise exposing her bare breasts doesn’t inherently qualify as “lewd” under the current Minnesota statute.
The ruling, which was released late last week, effectively overturned a Court of Appeals decision against the defendant, who was arrested and cited with a misdemeanor in 2021 after she was observed in Rochester “walking around a gas station parking lot with her breasts exposed.”
According to court records, the woman had exposed herself in an officer’s presence at least two other times in the weeks leading up to her arrest. When asked why she was revealing her breasts, she allegedly said, “I think Catholic girls do it all the time.” The arresting officer found a vial containing cocaine in her purse.
While she was cited for misdemeanor indecent exposure for willfully and lewdly exposing her private parts, court records indicate she moved to have those charges dismissed, arguing that breasts are not “private parts.” She argued that, under the state statute, “the exposure of breasts, without an additional showing, is not ‘lewd,'” and said that Minnesota’s indecent exposure statute is “unconstitutionally vague.”
The district court found the woman guilty on all charges, and said her exposure was “‘legally obscene.”
But in the April 30 opinion, authored by Justice Karl Procaccini, the Minnesota Supreme Court sided with the woman, saying that to be guilty of “lewdly” exposing oneself, a person would need to be involved “in conduct of a sexual nature,” and said the state “did not present evidence sufficient to prove that the appellant ‘lewdly’ exposed her ‘body, or the private parts thereof.'”
In a concurring opinion, Justice Sarah Hennesy did raise the concern that “the definition of ‘private parts’ remains ambiguous,” and suggested that future cases might still require wrestling with the subjectivity of what conduct an individual would believe is sexual in nature.
“Undoubtedly, reasonable minds will differ in determining what constitutes engaging in ‘conduct of a sexual nature’ when breasts are exposed,” she wrote. “For example, if a woman exposes her breast while dancing, is she engaged in conduct of a sexual nature? How do we know that such conduct is sexual? Does the determination depend on the way she is dancing?”
At the same time, Hennesy pointed up a double standard.
“Interpreting ‘private parts’ to include female — and not male — breasts would lead to the continued stigmatization of female breasts as inherently sexual and reinforce the sexual objectification of women,” she wrote. “As other courts have recognized, the idea that female breasts are primarily sexual is rooted in stereotypes.”
Read the full opinion and concurrence below:
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