Supreme Court of Minnesota Reverses Woman’s Conviction, Finding Her Act of Exposing Her Breasts in Gas Station Parking Lot Was Not “Lewd”

Pursuant Minnesota Statutes section 617.23, subdivision 1(1),

Subdivision 1. Misdemeanor. A person who commits any of the following acts in any public place, or in any place where others are present, is guilty of a misdemeanor:

(1) willfully and lewdly exposes the person’s body, or the private parts thereof

So, does a woman exposing her breasts in a gas station parking lot violate this indecent exposure statute? According to the recent opinion of the Supreme Court of Minnesota in State v. Plancarte, 2025 WL 1242804 (Minn. 2025), the answer is “no.”

In Plancarte,

On July 28, 2021, the Rochester Police Department received a report that a woman was walking around a gas station parking lot with her breasts exposed. An officer responded to the call and saw Plancarte in the parking lot with her breasts exposed. The officer recognized Plancarte from two encounters earlier that week. During those encounters, the officer saw Plancarte exposing her underwear on one occasion, and her breasts and her underwear on another occasion.

The officer stopped Plancarte and asked her why she kept exposing herself. Plancarte replied, “I think Catholic girls do it all the time.” Plancarte then worried about how she would get home and stated, “I dance at the biker club. I’m a stripper.” The officer said, “Well, you can’t strip in the middle of public.” Plancarte responded, “Yeah, but they should account for me at the club, shouldn’t they?” The officer arrested Plancarte and later searched her purse, where the officer found a vial containing cocaine.

After Plancarte was convicted, she appealed her indecent exposure conviction, with the Supreme Court of Minnesota ruling as follows:

Minnesota’s indecent exposure statute, and its use of “lewdly,” dates to 1885, when Minnesota imported parts of the New York Penal Code into its own penal code….New York’s penal code was based in part on English common law….Accordingly, English common law is instructive when interpreting New York’s penal code and, by extension, Minnesota’s penal code. English common law defined “lewdness” as “the irregular indulgence of lust or other sexually oriented behavior that is indecent or offensive in a public place.”…

The common law understanding of lewdness comports with dictionaries from the 1880s, which define “lewd” to mean “sexual” or “lustful.” It also reflects our case law….And it aligns with other jurisdictions’ interpretations of similar terms, which we find persuasive here….The Supreme Court of Utah, for example, has defined “lewdness” as “misconduct of a sexual nature.”…The Supreme Court of Colorado has defined “lewd fondling or caress” as “lascivious conduct of an overtly sexualized nature.”…And the Supreme Court of Vermont has approved a trial court’s jury instruction defining “lewd and lascivious behavior” as “behavior that is sexual in nature, lustful, or indecent.”…Taken together, former law favors interpreting “lewdly” to encompass conduct that is of a sexual nature, lustful, or indecent.

The canon of constitutional avoidance, however, requires us to further limit the meaning of the term “lewdly” in the indecent exposure statute. We generally construe statutes to avoid constitutional confrontations….This includes confrontations with the Due Process Clauses of the United States and Minnesota Constitutions, which require criminal statutes to be sufficiently definite to warn ordinary people of what conduct is prohibited in a manner that prevents arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement….Accordingly, a statute is unconstitutionally vague “ ‘if it fails to provide people of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to understand what conduct it prohibits’” or “ ‘if it authorizes or even encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.’”…

Although “lewdly” in the indecent exposure statute has a broader meaning than “obscene,” defining “lewdly” as “indecently” or “lustfully” threatens to undermine due process by failing to put the public on notice of the kinds of acts that are prohibited by the statute. Indeed, federal courts have invalidated statutes prohibiting “indecent” conduct where “indecent” is undefined, because the term is too broad and invites arbitrary enforcement….Likewise, what is “lustful” is often in the eye of the beholder, and interpreting “lewdly” to mean “lustfully” could lead to the arbitrary enforcement of the indecent exposure statute. Such an interpretation may also result in discriminatory enforcement based on harmful gender stereotypes. To avoid these constitutional concerns, we decline to interpret “lewdly” to mean “indecently” or “lustfully.”…Having declined to interpret “lewdly” to mean “obscene,” “indecently,” or “lustfully,” we are left with one reasonable interpretation of the term: of a sexual nature. We therefore conclude that “lewdly” refers to conduct of a sexual nature.

The court then found that Placarte exposing her breasts was not an “overtly sexual act,” ruling as follows:

Plancarte argues that the evidence was insufficient to prove that she “lewdly” exposed her breasts in the gas station parking lot because she did not commit an “overtly sexual act” at the time of her exposure. Plancarte emphasizes the district court’s finding that she “was not engaged in any type of overt public sexual activity or sexual contact with others in addition to the exposure itself.” The State asserts that the evidence was sufficient to prove lewd exposure because Plancarte’s “public exposure of her body was ‘openly lustful’ or ‘indecent’ which makes it ‘lewd.’” In making this argument, the State relies on the district court’s finding that Plancarte was an “exhibitionist,” Plancarte’s statements that “Catholic girls [expose their breasts] all the time,” and Plancarte’s assertion that she is a “stripper at a biker bar.”

We agree with Plancarte. For the reasons explained above, we reject the interpretations of “lewdly” that the State proposes in support of Plancarte’s conviction. And under the meaning of “lewdly” that applies to the indecent exposure statute, the State has not met its burden of proving that Plancarte’s exposure was lewd, because none of the evidence in the record suggests that her conduct was of a sexual nature. Although the police reports establish that Plancarte was charged with indecent exposure three times in one week for exposing some combination of her breasts and underwear, none of these reports provide any insight into the nature of her exposure during those incidents. Moreover, the officer’s body-worn camera footage does not capture Plancarte engaging in any conduct of a sexual nature. Finally, Plancarte’s comment about being “a stripper” and her assertion that “Catholic girls [expose their breasts] all the time” are not evidence that her conduct in this instance was of a sexual nature. At most, Plancarte’s statements speak to her subjective mental state when she was exposing her breasts, which is irrelevant to determining whether her conduct was lewd. As we explained in State v. Jama, “it is the nature and location of the exposure that impacts the certainty of the observation—not the [defendant’s] subjective intent.”…Indeed, the district court itself acknowledged that Plancarte’s conduct was not of a sexual nature when it expressly found that she “was not engaged in any type of overt public sexual activity or sexual contact with others in addition to the exposure itself.”

-CM