Title: Hanson v. State

State: georgia

Issuer: Georgia Supreme Court

Document:

569 S.E.2d 513 (2002) 275 Ga. 470 HANSON v. The STATE. No. S02A1079. Supreme Court of Georgia. September 16, 2002. Jackie Glenn Patterson, LaGrange, for appellant. Jack Kirby, Solicitor Gen., Julianne Wesley Holliday, Asst. Solicitor Gen., LaGrange, for appellee. THOMPSON, Justice. Defendant Robert Lee Hanson was convicted of possession of alcohol by a person under 21 years of age in violation of OCGA § 3-3-23. In this appeal he challenges the constitutionality of that statute. We find the statute to be constitutional and affirm. Responding to a call concerning a fight, Sgt. Hadley of the Troup County Sheriff's Department saw Hanson, who was under 21 years old, walking down the road. When the officer approached Hanson, he detected an odor of alcohol; Hanson's speech was slurred and his eyes were glazed. Hanson told the officer he had been drinking Zima. The officer arrested Hanson for possession of alcohol by a person under 21 years of age. Following a bench trial, Hanson was found guilty, fined, and sentenced to serve six months on probation. 1. Evidence that Hanson had the odor of alcohol on his person, appeared to be in an intoxicated state, and admitted that he had consumed an alcoholic beverage, was sufficient to enable any rational trier of fact to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of possession of alcohol by a person under 21 years of age. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 61 L. Ed. 2d 560 (1979). Green v. State, 260 Ga. 625(1), 398 S.E.2d 360 (1990), upon which Hanson relies, does not require us to hold that the evidence was insufficient to establish that Hanson was in possession of an alcoholic beverage. That case merely stands for the proposition that the presence of cocaine metabolites in body fluid does not constitute direct evidence that the person who produced the body fluid possessed cocaine. 2. Contrary to Hanson's assertion, the evidence demonstrated that Zima is an alcoholic beverage. It also demonstrated that venue was in Troup County. OCGA § 17-2-2(h); see Green v. State, supra (if it cannot be determined in what county a crime was committed, it shall be considered to have been committed in any county in which the *514 evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that it might have been committed). 3. OCGA § 3-3-23 provides, in pertinent part: Hanson asserts OCGA § 3-3-23 violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it permits some under-21-year-olds to possess alcohol, while making it a crime for others to possess alcohol, without any rational basis. More specifically, Hanson asserts the State does not have a legitimate interest in permitting (1) a physician to prescribe alcohol to a person under 21 years of age (OCGA § 3-3-23(b)(1)) or (2) a parent to give alcohol to a person under 21 years of age in the home (OCGA § 3-3-23(c)). We disagree. In Kelley v. State, 252 Ga. 208, 312 S.E.2d 328 (1984), this Court upheld the constitutionality of OCGA § 3-3-23 when it was attacked on the ground that it gave preferential treatment to military personnel. In so doing, we observed: Id. at 209, 312 S.E.2d 328. Employing the rationality standard in this case, and giving due deference to the function and task of the legislature, we have no hesitation in concluding that the legislature has made rational distinctions with respect to the possession of alcohol generally by persons under 21 years of age, and the possession of alcohol by such persons when it is prescribed by a physician or provided by a parent in the privacy of the *515 home. Simply put, these distinctions recognize that young people will be held more accountable when they are provided with alcohol under supervised settings or conditions. As we held in Kelley at 210, 312 S.E.2d 328: Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.