Opinion ID: 1111406
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: SchizophreniaState v. Mueller [46]

Text: State v. Mueller, supra, 66 Haw. 616, 671 P.2d 1351 (1983), accorded this court its first opportunity to construe the limits of the state's police power to criminalize conduct in light of the constraints imposed upon it by the recently adopted article I, section 6. [47] In Mueller, the defendant (Mueller) was charged with prostitution in violation of HRS § 712-1200 (Supp.1982), for having engage[d] in, or agree[d] to engage in, sexual conduct with another person, in return for a fee. Mueller moved to dismiss the charge asserting a constitutional right to privacy for activities that were conducted in the privacy of her own home. At the hearing on the motion[,] the parties entered into a stipulation of facts, agreeing that the activity in question took place in ... Mueller's apartment, the participants were willing adults, and there were no signs of advertising anywhere in the apartment building. Mueller, 66 Haw. at 618-19, 671 P.2d at 1354. Mueller's argument was twofold: (1) that the activity's private setting and the absence of public solicitation set her apart `from every other prostitution case'; and (2) that a decision to engage in sex with `a voluntary adult companion' was `well within her constitutional right to privacy.' Id. at 619, 671 P.2d at 1354. The district court denied Mueller's motion to dismiss, ruling that the State has a `compelling interest in controlling prostitution in private residences as well as on the streets,' and convicted her of the offense charged. Id. With the caveat that [o]ur opinion ... is limited to the question of whether the right to privacy guaranteed by [a]rticle I, section 6 of the Hawaii Constitution is broad enough to include a decision to engage in prostitution, id. at 630 n. 9, 671 P.2d at 1360 n. 9, this court affirmed Mueller's conviction. [48] While I make no definitive judgment as to the correct ness of the Mueller court's judgment of affirmance, I have much to say about the path by which the court reached its result. That path was as follows: The Supreme Court teaches us that a right to personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, is implicit in the United States Constitution, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 152, 93 S.Ct. 705, 726, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973); [a]rticle I, [s]ection 6 of the Hawaii Constitution explicitly declares that [t]he right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest. ... Mueller (the defendant) claims the State invaded a constitutionally protected area of privacy when it prosecuted her for prostitution on the basis of sexual conduct involving two consenting adults and occurring in her home. But we are not convinced a decision to engage in sex for hire is a fundamental right in our scheme of ordered liberty, and we affirm her conviction. .... The sole issue posed on appeal is whether the proscriptions of ... []HRS[] § 712-1200 may be applied to an act of sex for a fee that took place in a private apartment. With Roe v. Wade, supra , as the point of departure, [Mueller] argues the privacy guaranteed by the federal and state constitutions prevented a valid application of the statute to the act in question. We begin our analysis by examining the sources and scope of the federally protected right to personal privacy. .... The United States Constitution contains no express provisions guaranteeing to persons the right to carry on their lives protected from the `vicissitudes of the political process' by a zone of privacy or a right of personhood. L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 893 (1978). But in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965), the Supreme Court found that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance, 381 US. at 484, 85 S.Ct. at 1681, and concluded [v]arious guarantees create zones of privacy. Id. The marriage relationship, it held, was one lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. 381 U.S. at 485, 85 S.Ct. at 1682. And the Connecticut statute forbidding the use of contraceptives was struck down as being repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the ... relationship. 381 U.S. at 486, 85 S.Ct. at 1682. Thus the privacy accorded constitutional protection by Griswold inhered in the marital relationship. But when the Court subsequently invalidated a Massachusetts law regulating the distribution of contraceptives in Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 92 S.Ct. 1029, 31 L.Ed.2d 349 (1972), it recognized that this right also existed apart from marriage. For as the Court explained, [i]f the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusions into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child. 405 U.S. at 453, 92 S.Ct. at 1038 (emphasis in original). Whether the right is broad enough to accommodate a woman's decision to seek an abortion was the question in Roe v. Wade, supra . The Court observed that earlier decisions made it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed `fundamental' or `implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,' Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325, 58 S.Ct. 149, 152, 82 L.Ed. 288 (1937), are included in this guarantee of personal privacy. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. at 152, 93 S.Ct. at 726. That the guarantee had been extended to activities relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child rearing and education was also noted. Id. at 152-53, 93 S.Ct. at 726-27. And the Court concluded [t]his right of privacy, whether it be founded in the [f]ourteenth [a]mendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action ... or... in the [n]inth [a]mendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. Id. at 153, 93 S.Ct. at 727. However, it ruled this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation. Id. at 154, 93 S.Ct. at 727. [49] The Court has also spoken very clearly in another area of intimate decision. The issue in Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 89 S.Ct. 1243, 22 L.Ed.2d 542 (1969), was whether the Georgia obscenity statute, insofar as it punishes mere private possession of obscene matter, violates the [f]irst [a]mendment, as made applicable to the States by the [f]ourteenth [a]mendment. Id. at 559, 89 S.Ct. at 1244. The appellant's thesis was characterized as asserting the right to read or observe what he pleasesthe right to satisfy his intellectual and emotional needs in the privacy of his own home. Id. at 565, 89 S.Ct. at 1248. Though it acknowledged the States retain broad power to regulate obscenity, the Court nevertheless held that the power simply does not extend to mere possession by the individual in the privacy of his own home. Id. at 568, 89 S.Ct. at 1250. [50] .... But there has been no clear and binding judicial statement on the matter of our present concern.... .... We turn from privacy as expounded by the Supreme Court to the right of privacy that has been written into the Hawaii Constitution.... Couched in the terse language characteristic of constitutions, the provision itself gives no clue of its intended breadth. We therefore look to an obvious extrinsic aid to construction, its history, for direction. .... The language at bar was added to the Hawaii Bill of Rights during the most recent decennial review of our fundamental law. The suggestion to adopt a specific right to privacy was offered by the [CBRSE] of the Constitutional Convention of Hawaii of 1978 as one of several proposals related to the Bill of Rights. See Comm. P. No. 15, [ reprinted in 1] Proceedings... at 825-27. The report [ i.e., Standing Committee Report No. 69] accompanying Committee Proposal No. 15 discussed the proposals at length, and the discussion on the proposed privacy right furnished an insight to what was meant to be covered. .... The [CBRSE] believed this right of privacy ... [should include] the right of an individual to tell the world to `mind your own business.' [Stand. Comm. Rep. No. 69, reprinted in 1 Proceedings at 674.] It cited with approval the proposition that the right to be left alone ... [is] the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. See Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478, 48 S.Ct. 564, 572, 72 L.Ed. 944 (Brandeis, J., dissenting). The intended privacy, it said, gave each and every individual the right to control certain highly personal and intimate affairs of his own life. Stand Comm. Rep. No. 69, supra, at 674. The right to personal autonomy, it made clear, was to be included in this concept of privacy. Id. Whether an individual's desire to engage in a particular activity is protected by this aspect of the right to privacy, (the right to personal autonomy), however, was deemed a matter for the courts. Id. at 675. .... ... Sitting as a committee of the whole, the convention discussed the proposal at length and thereafter adopted a committee report reflecting the consensus of the assembly. [The Mueller opinion then quotes Committee of the Whole Report No. 15 at length, but omits the paragraph beginning with the sentence, To make clear its intent, your Committee would like to reiterate and elaborate on certain matters contained in Stand. Comm. Rep. No. 69. See supra section II.A.2.] Thus, we are led back to Griswold, Eisenstadt, and Roe and appear to have come full circle in our search for guidance on the intended scope of the privacy protected by the Hawaii Constitution. .... [Mueller] asserts Griswold, et al., and the State Constitution placed the act for which she was prosecuted beyond the reach of HRS § 712-1200 because it was sexual activity carried on in private between two consenting adults and it was not preceded by public solicitation. There was, she claims, no state interest that compelled her prosecution under these circumstances. [51] Since the guaranteed freedom from intrusion extends to sexual activity among unmarried adult couples as Eisenstadt v. Baird suggests and to autoeroticism in the home as Stanley v. Georgia implies, we would have to agree that there is room for argument that the right encompasses any decision to engage in sex at home with another willing adult. Moreover, as [Mueller] reminds us, the commentary on HRS § 712-1200 evidences that the drafters of the Penal Code found the usual reasons for suppressing prostitution are less than convincing. Still, every enactment of the legislature is presumptively constitutional, and a party challenging the statute has the burden of showing unconstitutionality beyond a reasonable doubt. [Mueller] has not met this burden, for she has not demonstrated in a convincing manner that a decision to engage in prostitution has been recognized as a fundamental right. . . . . [O]ne aspect of the `liberty' protected by the Due Process Clause of the [f]ourteenth [a]mendment is `a right of personal privacy,' Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. [678,] 684, 97 S.Ct. 2010, 2015, 52 L.Ed.2d 675 [(1977)] (quoting Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. at 152, 93 S.Ct. at 726), which includes the interest in independence in making certain kinds of important decisions. Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589, 599-600, 97 S.Ct. 869, 876, 51 L.Ed.2d 64 (1977). While the outer limits of this aspect of privacy have not been marked by the Court, it is clear that among the decisions that an individual may make without unjustified government interference are personal decisions `relating to marriage ..., procreation ..., contraception..., family relationships ..., and child rearing and education.... Roe v. Wade, supra, [410 U.S.] at 152-153, 93 S.Ct. at 726-27. Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. at 684-85, 97 S.Ct. at 2015-16 (citations omitted). It is also clear that state laws that burden an individual's right to decide in the foregoing areas may be justified only by a compelling state interest. Id. at 688, 97 S.Ct. at 2018. But state regulation need not meet this standard `whenever it implicates sexual freedom' or `affect[s] adult sexual relations.' Id. at 688 n. 5, 97 S.Ct. at 2018 n. 5. [52] For as we noted earlier, only personal rights that can be deemed `fundamental' or `implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,  Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325, 58 S.Ct. 149, 152, 82 L.Ed. 288 (1937), are included in the guarantee of personal privacy. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. at 152, 93 S.Ct. at 726. [Mueller] has directed us to nothing suggesting a decision to engage in sex for hire at home should be considered basic to ordered liberty. ... [But] until we learn from the Court's pronouncements that we have been misinformed, we shall continue to assume there is a social interest in order and morality, [53] Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571-72, 62 S.Ct. 766, 769, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942) (quoted in Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 485, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1309, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957), that enables a state legislature to act in this area. Cf. Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 57-69, 93 S.Ct. 2628, 2635-42, 37 L.Ed.2d 446 (1973) (States have a legitimate interest in regulating commerce in obscene material, even among consenting adults). [54] The validity of the action, of course, is contingent upon the presence of a rational basis therefor. .... The drafters of the Hawaii Penal Code justified the enactment of HRS § 712-1200 on the need for public order. [55] We would not dispute that it was reasonable for the legislature to act on that basis. A large segment of society undoubtedly regards prostitution as immoral [56] and degrading, and the self-destructive or debilitating nature of the practice, at least for the prostitute, is often given as a reason for outlawing it. [57] We could not deem these views irrational. ... .... Having found that [Mueller's] decision, though arguably an intimate one, has yet to be drawn into a federally protected zone of privacy, we now consider the decision to have sex for a fee in the light of the special recognition accorded privacy by the Hawaii Constitution. Our duty is to give effect to the intention of the framers and the people adopting the provision. HGEA v. County of Maui, 59 Haw. 65, 80-81, 576 P.2d 1029, 1039 (1978). While the report that brought the proposal to the floor of the convention in 1978 may be read as envisioning a broader right to privacy, what was approved by the framers is similar to the privacy right discussed in cases such as Griswold v. Connecticut , ... Eisenstadt v. Baird , ... Roe v. Wade, ..., etc. Comm. Whole Rep. No. 15, [ reprinted in ] [1] Proceedings... at 1024 (citations omitted). Thus, a purpose to lend talismanic effect to the right to be left alone, intimate decision, or personal autonomy, or personhood cannot be inferred from the State provision, any more than it can from the federal decisions. However described, a freedom that is protected thereunder must still be one ranked as fundamental in the concept of ordered liberty that underlies our society. Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. at 325, 58 S.Ct. at 152 (quoting Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105, 54 S.Ct. 330, 332, 78 L.Ed. 674 (1934)). We see no evidence that we are dealing with one. Though the trial court denied [Mueller's] motion to dismiss the charge on grounds that a compelling state interest had been shown, the denial was a correct result. We therefore affirm [Mueller's] conviction of prostitution. Mueller, 66 Haw. at 618-30, 671 P.2d at 1353-60 (some citations and internal quotation marks omitted) (footnotes omitted) (some emphases, brackets, and ellipsis points in original and some added). What I find most notable about the Mueller decision's approach to article I, section 6 is the pervasive ambivalence with which the decision is imbued, both in the literal sense, to the extent that it exhibits a recurring uncertainty or fluctuation ... caused by ... a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite things, see Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language 46 (1989), and in the metaphorical, psychological sense, to the extent that it exhibits the coexistence within an individual of positive and negative feelings toward the same ... object ..., simultaneously drawing him in opposite directions, see id. On the one hand, the Mueller decision concedes its acute awareness that article I, section 6 protects a fundamental right of personal privacy, ... the outer limits of which have not been marked, but which includes the interest in independence in making certain kinds of important decisions and which state law may justifiably burden only by a compelling state interest. 66 Haw. at 627, 671 P.2d at 1358-59 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). On the other hand, by misapplying the presumption that every enactment of the legislature is ... constitutional and, therefore, wrongly invoking the principle that a party challenging the statute has the burden of showing unconstitutionality beyond a reasonable doubt, see supra section II.A.1; McCloskey, 71 Haw. at 576, 799 P.2d at 957, the Mueller decision (similarly to Baker before it, see supra section I.C.2.a) was able to stand constitutional analysis on its head and thereby topple the straw person that it had created by proclaiming that the defendant has not met this burden, for she has not demonstrated in a convincing manner that a decision to engage in prostitution has been recognized as a fundamental right. Mueller, 66 Haw. at 626-27, 671 P.2d at 1358 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Put succinctly, Mueller is a perfect illustration of what I call the fallacy of trivialization. Of course the decision to engage in sex for hire, in and of itself, is no more a fundamental right in our scheme of ordered liberty, see id. at 618, 671 P.2d at 1353-54, than is the decision to use contraceptives as a birth control device, the criminalization of which was struck down in Griswold, or the decision to distribute contraceptives for birth control purposes, the criminalization of which was struck down in Eisenstadt, or the decision to seek an abortion as a method of birth control, the criminalization of which was struck down in Roe, or the decision to sell or privately to possess contraband pornography for purposes of engaging in autoeroticism in the home, see Mueller, 66 Haw. at 626, 671 P.2d at 1358, the criminalization of which was struck down by this court in Kam (discussed at length infra in section II.B.2). The real issue in Mueller, however, was not whether the defendant had a fundamental constitutional right, in and of itself, to be a house prostitute and to engage in what Justice Padgett facetiously referred to as a cottage industry. See supra note 48. Rather, the issue, as the Mueller court framed it in its forthright mode, was whether the State invaded a constitutionally protected area of privacy when it prosecuted her for prostitution on the basis of sexual conduct involving two consenting adults and occurring in her home. Mueller, 66 Haw. at 618, 671 P.2d at 1353 (emphasis added). In other words, the real issue was whether engaging in consensual sex in the home, for consideration or otherwise, fell within the ambit of personal adult conduct protected by article I, section 6 of the Hawai`i Constitution  the scope of which is discussed exhaustively supra in sections II.A.1 and 2  and was therefore beyond the sovereign police power of the state to criminalize (as opposed to regulate by other reasonable means, see supra note 55), absent the most narrowly drawn and least drastic means for effectuating the state's objectives and a compelling interest perceived as a result of strict scrutiny. In the end, and without regard to any possible alternative modes of analysis, the Mueller court appears to have arrived at its holding  namely, that prosecuting the defendant for violating HRS § 712-1200 did not infringe her fundamental constitutional right to privacy  by incorrectly (1) resorting to the fallacy of trivialization, (2) misreading the intent of the 1978 Constitutional Convention and thereby equating, in all respects, the scope of the independently fundamental right to privacy expressly enunciated in article I, section 6 of the Hawai`i Constitution with the derivative and penumbral right of privacy discerned by the United States Supreme Court in the emanations of the federal bill of rights, [58] (3) applying the presumption that the challenged statute was constitutional and imposing on the defendant the burden of proving otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt, and (4) employing rational basis  rather than strict scrutiny  review. These mistakes would not be repeated in Kam.