The American Pundit

Apparently it falls under the, er, “user’s” Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

The ACLU filed a brief Tuesday supporting Craig. It cited a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling 38 years ago that found that people who have sex in closed stalls in public restrooms “have a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

That means the state cannot prove Craig was inviting the undercover officer to have sex in public, the ACLU wrote.

Even if Craig was inviting the officer to have sex, the ACLU argued, his actions would not be illegal.

“The government cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Senator Craig was inviting the undercover officer to engage in anything other than sexual intimacy that would not have called attention to itself in a closed stall in the public restroom,” the ACLU wrote in its brief.

Allah did a little Googling and thinks the precedent could be State v. Bryant, 287 Minn. 205, 177 N.W.2d 800 (1970). I can’t find much about it, but in a 2006 ruling the Minnesota Court of Appeals recalled the case:

Relying on State v. Bryant, 287 Minn. 205, 177 N.W.2d 800 (1970), the state contends that a reasonable person using a public restroom can expect that degree of privacy that the design [of the restroom] affords. In Bryant, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that police surveillance of an enclosed toilet stall violated the user’s Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

But does it apply to Craig’s case? Essentially, it sounds as if you can, er, “do” what you want in the stall, as long as you do it privately in the stall. Allah points out that, according to the officer’s statement, Craig solicited the officer in the next stall over.