111 P3D 360 - State v. Morgan

¶1OPINION

COATS, Chief Judge.

¶2The respondents, Glen D. Morgan Jr., Athena Komakhuk, and Kirk J. Peterson, were each charged under AS 04.16.050 with one count of possessing, controlling, or consuming alcoholic beverages by a person under the age of 21. Among other things, any person convicted for violating AS 04.16.050 must be placed on probation for one year, or until that person reaches the age of 21 years, whichever is longer. However, a court can impose imprisonment only for a third or subsequent offense.1 Each respondent moved in *361the district court for dismissal, arguing that this probation provision violates Alaska’s equal protection law because the provision requires younger offenders to stay on probation longer than older offenders. District Court Judges Sigurd E. Murphy and Jack W. Smith agreed with the respondents, and dismissed the cases. The State petitioned for review of Judge Murphy’s and Judge Smith’s decisions. We granted the petitions, and then granted the State’s motion to consolidate these cases. Because we conclude that the challenged probation provision does not violate equal protection, we reverse the decisions of the district court.

¶3Discussion

¶4The Alaska Constitution requires that similarly situated individuals be treated equally.2 When analyzing a claim that a statute violates Alaska’s equal protection clause, Alaska’s appellate courts must balance the “significance of the individual right purportedly ‘infringed, the importance of the regulatory interest asserted by the state, and the closeness of the fit between the challenged statute and the state’s asserted regulatory interest.”3

¶5A properly enacted law is presumed to be constitutional, and “[c]ourts should construe enactments to avoid a finding of unconstitutionality to the extent possible. This is particularly so in a case [involving] a facial challenge as opposed to a challenge to the [enactment] as applied.”4

¶6In 2001, the Alaska legislature passed the current version of AS 4.16.050.5 With some exceptions not pertinent in these cases, AS 04.16.050 makes it illegal for a “person under the age of 21 years” to knowingly consume, possess, or control alcoholic beverages.6 Among other things, any person convicted of violating this statute must be placed on probation “for one year, or until the person is 21 years of age, whichever is later.”7 The person may not refuse probation.8

¶7As already set out, the respondents challenge on equal protection grounds the requirement that any person convicted of violating AS 04.16.050 must be placed on probation for one year or until the person is 21 years of age, whichever is later.

¶8In analyzing this challenge, we find that the respondents’ interest involves an integral part of their punishment, that is, the length of their probation. Their interest in the length of their probation is the “relatively narrow interest” that a convicted offender has “in minimizing the punishment for an offense.”9 As explained by the United States Supreme Court, “[e]very person has a fundamental right to liberty in the sense that the Government may not punish him unless and until it proves his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at a criminal trial conducted in accordance with the relevant constitutional guarantees.”10 But once a person is lawfully convicted, that person is subject to “whatever punishment is authorized by statute for his offense, so long as that penalty is not cruel and unusual, and so long as the penalty is not based on an arbitrary distinction that would violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.”11

¶9 *362Meanwhile, with regard to the second factor, we find that the State has a compelling interest in preserving the health and welfare of minors.12

¶10Finally, with regard to the third factor, when the State’s interest in enacting the challenged statute is sufficiently strong, and the individual’s interest is low, then the challenged statute must bear a “substantial relationship” to the state’s asserted regulatory interest.13 In this case, because the State’s interest in preventing underage drinking is sufficiently strong, and the importance of the respondents’ interest relatively low, we must determine whether the challenged probation provision of AS 04.16.050 has a substantial relationship to the social policy of preventing underage drinking.

¶11There is a substantial relationship

¶12The legislative history of this statute shows that the drafters wanted to deter underage drinking, and to identify and treat minors with alcohol abuse problems. In 2001, State Representative Norman Roke-berg introduced House Bill 179 to amend AS 04.16.050. Among other things, one of the proposed amendments required that all offenders be placed on probation for one year or until the offender turned 21 years old, whichever was later.14 When asked by the House Judiciary Committee to explain House Bill 179’s objective, Representative Rokeberg responded that “[w]e’re trying to dissuade juveniles from consuming alcohol.” A representative from the Department of Law emphasized to the committee that

a way to instill the idea that offenders may not drink until they become 21 is to place offenders on open-court, unsupervised, informal probation until they are 21. Then, when the offender reaches the age of 21, he [or] she is off probation.

¶13Representative Rokeberg later advised the House Finance Committee that

[statistics show that the earlier a person begins drinking, the more likely they are to have problems with alcohol later in life. By sending a message early to minors that their actions will not go unpunished, we hope to deter alcohol problems in the future.

¶14Finally, when the bill went before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a representative from the Department of Health and Human Services said that with regard to treating minors who unlawfully consume alcohol, “monitoring is key.... [The] goal is to get the monitoring and provide treatment to intervene early.” In other words, the statute’s probation period would assure that courts were part of the monitoring process.

¶15To support its claim that there is a substantial relationship between the statute and the goal of preventing underage drinking, the State argues that minors who drink at younger ages logically require more monitoring than older offenders for two reasons. First, there is a longer period when younger offenders can re-offend. Once minors have been found guilty of offending, the probation period keeps these offenders under court supervision until they are old enough to legally consume or possess alcohol. Second, people who begin drinking at younger ages have a greater risk of having problems with alcohol later in life. This second reason was specifically discussed during the April 2001 House Finance Committee hearing. As already mentioned, Representative Rokeberg pointed out that “statistics show that the earlier a person begins drinking, the more likely they are to have problems with alcohol later in life. By sending a message early to minors that their actions will not go unpunished, we hope to deter alcohol problems in the future.”

¶16This record demonstrates that, because of the potential danger and social cost assoeiat-*363ed with underage drinking, the legislature enacted the mandatory probation provision to, among other things, deter minors from consuming alcohol. The record also demonstrates that for those minors who could not be deterred, the legislature wanted to keep minors convicted of violating this statute under State and court supervision until they were able to legally consume or possess alcohol.

¶17The legislature could reasonably determine that in cases involving unlawful consumption or possession of alcohol, younger offenders are more vulnerable and have a higher risk than older offenders of incurring physical or mental health problems, of becoming crime victims, or of committing crimes. Nor, for example, was it unreasonable for the legislature to determine that thirteen-year-olds with an alcohol problem may need more intervention and monitoring than eighteen-year-olds with a similar alcohol problem. In light of the State’s interest in preventing the health and social problems that are associated with underage drinking and because the younger offenders are more at risk than are older offenders, then the legislature could properly decide that the State and the courts should monitor younger offenders longer than older offenders. We also note that based on its stated goal, the legislature could determine that there was no point in monitoring a person much beyond the age when that person can legally drink alcoholic beverages. That is, although the legislature could have required that all offenders be placed on probation for a set period of time-for instance, 5 years-the legislature could reasonably decide that keeping an eighteen-year-old on probation for 5 years (until the age of 23) did little to advance the goal of preventing underage drinking.

¶18We find that the challenged provision of the statute has a substantial relationship to the legislature’s goal of preventing unlawful underage drinking. Considering that the legislature may (and does) restrict minors’ freedom in ways that would be unconstitutional if applied to adults,15 we conclude that the statute on its face does not, by placing all minors convicted of illegally consuming or possessing alcohol on probation for one year or until they turn 21, whichever is longer, violate equal protection.

¶19Conclusion

¶20The decisions of the district court are REVERSED, and these cases are REMANDED for further proceedings.

¶21. AS 04.16.050(d).

¶22. See Alaska Const, art. 1, § 1.

¶23. Anderson v. State, 904 P.2d 433, 435 (Alaska App.1995) (citing State v. Enserch Alaska Constr., Inc., 787 P.2d 624, 631 (Alaska 1989)); see also Maeckle v. State, 792 P.2d 686, 688 (Alaska App.1990).

¶24. See Treacy v. Anchorage, 91 P.3d 252, 260 (Alaska 2004) (supreme court rejected juveniles’ equal protection challenge to municipality's curfew).

¶25. See ch. 65, SLA 2001. We set out the history of this statute in State v. Auliye, 57 P.3d 711, 713-15 (Alaska App.2002).

¶26. AS 04.16.050(a); the exceptions are set out in AS 04.16.051.

¶27. AS 04.16.050(e).

¶28. Id.

¶29. See Anderson, 904 P.2d at 436 (quoting Maeckle, 792 P.2d at 689).

¶30. Chapman v. United States, 500 U.S. 453, 465, 111 S.Ct. 1919, 1927, 114 L.Ed.2d 524 (1991), superceded by rule on other grounds as stated in United States v. Turner, 59 F.3d 481 (4th Cir.1995).

¶31. Chapman, 500 U.S. at 465, 111 S.Ct. at 1927 (internal citations omitted).

¶32.See Treacy, 91 P.3d at 265 (in reviewing municipality’s curfew ordinance, court ruled that government has a compelling interest in protecting "minors from crime and to curb juvenile crime”); L.A.M. v. State, 547 P.2d 827, 834 (Alaska 1976) ("The State has a legitimate interest in protecting children from venereal disease, from exposure to the use of dangerous and illicit drugs, from attempted rape, and from physical injury”); see also L.A.M., 547 P.2d at 836 n. 1 (Boochever, J., concurring).

¶33. See Allam v. State, 830 P.2d 435, 440 (Alaska App.1992).

¶34. AS 04.16.050(e).

¶35. See Allam, 830 P.2d at 436-37. See also L.A.M., 547 P.2d at 836 n. 1 (Boochever, J., concurring).