“What the Iowa Supreme Court’s Recent Public Indecency Decision Reveals About Statutory Interpretation”

Michael C. Dorf has this commentary on Findlaw that begins: 

Last week, in State v. Isaac, the Iowa Supreme Court reversed a man’s conviction for indecent exposure. The opinion reads as an almost textbook example of textualism–a method of statutory interpretation that focuses on a statute’s text, rather than seeking to discern the collective intent of its drafters.

But is textualism the best approach to statutory interpretation? In this column, I’ll discuss that question in general and in the specific context of the Iowa decision.