Opinion ID: 891568
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: School Security Concerns

Text: {44} In 1994, when the Legislature enacted the statute making it a felony to possess deadly weapons on school grounds, it neither created a new definition of deadly weapons for use in school cases nor amended in any way the existing general definition in the Criminal Code. Cf. State v. Salazar, 1997-NMCA-043, ¶ 9, 123 N.M. 347, 940 P.2d 195 (We believe the legislature intended [in Section 30-7-1] that its definition of carrying a deadly weapon would apply to all statutes making it a crime to carry a deadly weapon, whether concealed or on school premises.) Doe v. State ex rel. Governor's Organized Crime Prevention Comm'n, 114 N.M. 78, 80, 835 P.2d 76, 78 (1992) (stating that the Legislature is presumed to know about existing laws and cannot be inferred to have enacted a law inconsistent with an existing law). The Legislature simply expanded the existing criminal consequences for carrying a deadly weapon, from petty misdemeanor to fourth-degree felony penalties, if the crime was committed on school grounds. It expressed no intention whatsoever to change the definition of a deadly weapon. {45} We are sensitive to the concern expressed by the State that the social problem of deadly weapons in the schools is certainly more formidable and intractable than it was in 1855. This Court, however, must be careful not to intrude on the exclusive legislative prerogative to take those kinds of arguments into account in deciding whether an existing statute should be changed. Whether or not concerns of security arguably might now justify criminalizing the simple possession of potentially dangerous utilitarian tools on school grounds, this Court is not the entity charged with the modernization of the relevant statute. Traeger, 2001-NMSC-022, ¶ 14 (declining to add a baseball bat as a modern expansion of the historical bludgeon included in the definition). {46} Nor is anything in this opinion intended to impair the existing authority of school authorities to promulgate and enforce administrative security measures of the kind the Taos School Superintendent expeditiously employed in this case before the District Attorney filed charges under the criminal statutes. See, e.g., Taos High School, Student Behavior Policy, in Handbook §§ IV(A)-(B)(1), VI(A)(2)(p)-(q) (2008) (listing both possession of a weapon of any kind and possession of a pocketknife among specific examples of behavior that may result in school disciplinary action); Santa Fe Public Schools, Board of Education Policy Manual §§ 336-3 to -4, 347-1 (2002) (prohibiting possession of any firearm, knife ... or other object, even if manufactured for a nonviolent purpose, that has a potentially violent use, or any `look-a-like' object that resembles an object that has a potentially violent use, if, under the surrounding circumstances, the purpose of keeping or carrying the object is for use, or threat of use, as a weapon); Albuquerque Public Schools, Student Behavior Handbook: 2008-2009 11, 25 (2008) (prohibiting possession of, among other items, a firearm, any type of gun, knife, club ... that may cause or is intended to cause injury or death). The Legislature has specifically mandated minimum one-year expulsions of students who knowingly bring to school any firearms, explosives, or incendiary devices. NMSA 1978, § 22-5-4.7 (1995). {47} [P]ublic school officials [have] an effective means of disciplining unruly or disruptive pupils in an administrative fashion. State v. Doe, 140 Idaho 271, 92 P.3d 521, 525 (2004); see also In re Julio L., 197 Ariz. 1, 3 P.3d 383, 385 (2000) (en banc) ([N]ot every violation of public decorum or of school rules gives legal cause for criminal adjudication....). {48} Whatever the Legislature or school officials may choose to do in defining and sanctioning weapons violations in their respective spheres of authority, the courts are simply not invested with substantive policy-making authority to create those policies. It is the duty of the judicial branch to enforce the lawful policies established by the political branches as they are written and intended. In this case, we follow a long and consistent interpretation of legislative intent in reaffirming that our Legislature has not chosen to define an ordinary pocketknife as a per se deadly weapon, without regard to either its actual or its intended use.