In May 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a case, Qutb v. Bartlett, in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a Dallas, TX, curfew ordinance. The refusal to hear the case allowed the Fifth Circuit's decision to stand.

The Federal district court ruled in favor of the Qutbs. However, the Fifth Circuit reversed, ruling that an ordinance may be constitutional, even when it infringes upon a fundamental right, if it promotes a compelling governmental interest and if no less restrictive way exists to achieve the State's objective. The court held that the Dallas City Council proved its compelling interest in reducing juvenile crime by providing statistical findings that showed the incidence of youth misconduct in the city. The data provided demographic information about the prevalence of juvenile delinquency, the incidence of specific crimes, and the times of day and locations at which most violent juvenile crimes were committed. This effort, combined with the numerous exceptions written in the ordinance, indicated to the court the council's intent of limiting youth crime and victimization in the least restrictive manner possible. The court concluded that "the ordinance presents only a minimal intrusion into the parents' rights" because of the broad exemptions.

The Court's refusal to hear an appeal in the Qutb case does not guarantee protection against future challenges to curfews on constitutional or nonconstitutional grounds. However, a more recent ruling out of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California upheld that city's more stringent curfew legislation based upon the Qutb precedent. In March 1995, ACLU filed a suit in San Diego Federal court challenging the city's juvenile curfew ordinance on the grounds that it unreasonably restricted the mobility of youth in the city. The ACLU suit came in response to 6 months of aggressive enforcement of the curfew legislation in late 1994. From June to November of that year, 2,300 young people were arrested for curfew violations, an increase from the 1,000 charged with a violation during that same period in 1993

(yep, i cut and paste but the info is accurate as far as i know)