First Amendment, we conclude that Minn. Stat. § 617.261 has the potential to reach a
substantial amount of protected expressive conduct.6
Moreover, that substantial reach has the very chilling effect that the overbreadth
doctrine is intended to prevent. See Hensel, 901 N.W.2d at 174 (describing the “chilling
effect on expression protected by the First Amendment” as “the key concern of the
overbreadth doctrine”). An observer of an image on a publicly available medium that
depicts a person in a sexual act, or whose intimate parts are exposed, would be wise to
refrain from further disseminating that image or risk criminal prosecution under Minn. Stat.
§ 617.261 based on a prosecutor’s subjective belief that the image’s content should have
caused the observer to know that the person depicted did not consent to the dissemination
and that the image was obtained or created under circumstances indicating that the person
depicted had a reasonable expectation of privacy. And that risk exists even though such
images are often present on publicly available mediums with the consent of the people
depicted.7
In sum, Minn. Stat. § 617.261 proscribes a substantial amount of protected
expressive conduct, and it is therefore overbroad in violation of the First Amendment.
6
Although the statute includes certain exemptions, they do not meaningfully limit the
statute’s impermissible reach of further disseminations as described above. See Minn. Stat.
§ 617.261, subd. 5.
7
The state argues that the risk of erroneous prosecution of those who disseminate a sexual
image without intent to harm is lessened because “the prosecutor would have to [determine
that] there [was] a reasonable knowledge . . . that they would have known.” That argument
does not alleviate our constitutional concern. See Stevens, 559 U.S. at 480, 130 S. Ct. at
1591 (“We would not uphold an unconstitutional statute merely because the Government
promised to use it responsibly.”).
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