Opinion ID: 1197060
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Children's Code Preemption of the Curfew

Text: {10} Under Article X, Section 6(D) of the New Mexico Constitution, [a] municipality... may exercise all legislative powers and perform all functions not expressly denied by general law or charter. This Court has held that any New Mexico law that clearly intends to preempt a governmental area should be sufficient without necessarily stating that affected municipalities must comply and cannot operate to the contrary. Casuse v. City of Gallup, 106 N.M. 571, 573, 746 P.2d 1103, 1105 (1987). In this case, we determine that the Children's Code contains the express statement of the authority or power denied that is necessary to preempt a home-rule ordinance under the law articulated in Apodaca v. Wilson, 86 N.M. 516, 521, 525 P.2d 876, 881 (1974). For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that the Children's Code preempts the City from enacting this Curfew ordinance because the ordinance establishes criminal sanctions of incarceration and fines for juvenile activity which is not unlawful when committed by adults. {11} Included in the Legislature's stated purposes of the Children's Code is to provide for the care, protection and wholesome mental and physical development of children as well as to provide judicial and other procedures through which the provisions of the Children's Code are executed and enforced and in which the parties are assured a fair hearing and their constitutional and other legal rights are recognized and enforced. NMSA 1978, § 32A-1-3 (1993). Further, under NMSA 1978, § 32A-1-8(A) (1995), the children's court has exclusive original jurisdiction of all proceedings under the Children's Code involving a child alleged to be delinquent, neglected, abused, or a child of a family in need of services. We conclude that, through these provisions, the Legislature clearly intended to protect and preserve the legal rights of children in New Mexico. While this language does not prohibit municipalities from drafting ordinances that proscribe specific conduct of children which is unlawful if committed by adults, the procedures within the Children's Code control the manner in which children may be taken into custody, taken into protective custody, or adjudicated. The Curfew, which attempts to criminalize behavior involving juveniles, and the STOP program, which purportedly took children into protective custody, implicate the Children's Code procedures and protections. {12} The City argues that the Curfew does not fall within the Delinquency Act of the Children's Code because the Legislature has, in NMSA 1978, § 32A-2-3(A) (1996), defined a delinquent act as an act committed by a child that would be designated as a crime under the law if committed by an adult. While we agree that a violation of the City's Curfew is not a delinquent act because a curfew violation would not be designated as a crime if committed by an adult, we do not agree that the Delinquency Act leaves the City free to criminalize the otherwise lawful behavior of children. We believe the Legislature intended that this definition of a delinquent act in Section 32A-2-3(A) describe penal acts committed by juveniles that, due to the offenders' ages, the Legislature chose to label delinquent as opposed to criminal; thus, unless adult sentencing is expressly authorized by the Legislature, unlawful acts committed by juveniles are to be treated as delinquent instead of criminal. [1] {13} The explicitly articulated purpose of the Delinquency Act is to remove from children committing delinquent acts the adult consequences of criminal behavior, but to still hold children committing delinquent acts accountable. NMSA 1978, § 32A-2-2(A) (1993). This language demonstrates that the Legislature intended to spare children the stigma of the criminal label and protect them from the adult consequences of the criminal justice system. See NMSA 1978, § 32A-2-18(A) (1996) (A judgment in proceedings on a petition under the Delinquency Act ... resulting in a juvenile disposition shall not be deemed a conviction of crime nor shall it impose any civil disabilities ordinarily resulting from conviction of a crime....); NMSA 1978, § 32A-2-19(D) (1996) (No child found to be delinquent shall be committed or transferred to a penal institution or other facility used for the execution of sentences of persons convicted of crime.). See generally In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 376, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970) (Burger, C.J., dissenting) (describing a juvenile justice system as a generously conceived program of compassionate treatment intended to mitigate the rigors and trauma of exposing [children] to a traditional criminal court). To allow municipalities to criminalize the otherwise lawful behavior of children remaining on public streets during curfew hours, or to characterize any act of a child as criminal, as opposed to delinquent, would circumvent and thereby frustrate the Legislature's intent to protect children and uniformly enforce laws of a penal nature against them. The Delinquency Act comprehensively addresses behavior by children which could be described as criminal if not for the offender's age. {14} The Curfew creates a penal offense by authorizing incarceration for up to ninety days and a fine of up to $500 for each occurrence of an individual under the age of seventeen who remains in any public place or on the premises of any establishment within Albuquerque during curfew hours. See Albuquerque, N.M., Revised Ordinances § 12-1-99(I) (Each offense, upon conviction is punishable by a fine of not more than $500, or by imprisonment for not more than ninety days, or by both such fine and imprisonment.). The Curfew ordinance also authorizes a police officer to arrest children sixteen years of age or younger for violating the curfew, see id., § 12-5-9(E), and the City has placed the curfew ordinance within its Criminal Code, see id., § 12-1-1 (This chapter may be cited as `Criminal Code of Albuquerque.'). Thus, with its terminology of arrest, conviction, punishment, and imprisonment, the City has created a criminal offense that can only be committed by children. Due to this criminal nature of the Curfew, and the fact that it criminalizes only the behavior of people sixteen years of age or younger, it conflicts with the Delinquency Act. We conclude that the Legislature, through the plain language of Section 32A-2-3(A) of the Delinquency Act, preempts the City from enacting and enforcing the Curfew because the ordinance authorizes criminal punishment of children for acts which would not be designated as a crime under the law if committed by an adult. {15} The Curfew designates previously lawful behavior of young people as criminal in nature. See City of Roswell v. Gallegos, 77 N.M. 170, 172, 420 P.2d 438, 439 (1966) (noting that prosecution for violation of a municipal ordinance is a quasi-criminal proceeding); City of Santa Fe v. Baker, 95 N.M. 238, 241, 620 P.2d 892, 895 (Ct.App.1980) (same); City of Clovis v. Curry, 33 N.M. 222, 224-25, 264 P. 956, 957-58 (1928) (concluding that an ordinance in question authorized proceedings which were criminal in nature); State v. Melendrez, 91 N.M. 259, 261, 572 P.2d 1267, 1269 (Ct.App.1977) (noting that the violation of a municipal ordinance prohibiting shoplifting comes within the meaning of `crime'). Although the Curfew criminalizes this behavior for children, it is lawful for those seventeen and older. Again, the Legislature, through the Delinquency Act, exhaustively addresses the acts of children which would be unlawful if committed by an adult, and, instead of defining these acts as criminal for children, the Legislature designates these acts as delinquent. We believe that the Legislature has clearly expressed the view that behavior by children which could be considered criminal is encompassed within the Delinquency Act, and that the City is thus prohibited from criminalizing behavior by children which is lawful if committed by an adult. {16} The City argues that the Delinquency Act does not preempt the Curfew because other provisions of the Children's Code authorize protective custody and alternative programs to divert children from the juvenile justice system. [2] However, in spite of how the City characterizes the STOP program's enforcement scheme, the Curfew expressly authorizes the police to arrest children, rather than take them into protective custody, for a Curfew violation. Compare Ashton v. Brown, 339 Md. 70, 660 A.2d 447, 452 (1995) (describing an ordinance which instructs a police officer who finds a child violating the curfew to take such child into custody as a child in need of supervision), with Section 12-5-9(E). Under Section 12-5-9(E) of the Curfew, [t]he officer shall not issue a citation or make an arrest under this section unless the officer reasonably believes that an offense has occurred and that, based on any response and other circumstances, no defense ... is present. (Emphasis added). The only provision of the Children's Code to address children being taken into non-protective custody is within the Delinquency Act. Article II, Section 10 of the New Mexico Constitution allows a warrantless arrest only upon a showing of exigent circumstances. See Campos v. State, 117 N.M. 155, 159, 870 P.2d 117, 121 (1994). Similarly, under Section 32A-2-9, a child may be taken into custody pursuant to a court order, pursuant to the laws of arrest for commission of a delinquent act, or by a juvenile probation and parole officer. Cf. In re J.F.F., 164 Wis.2d 10, 473 N.W.2d 546, 549 (Wis.Ct.App.1991) (By limiting the power to take juveniles into custody for ordinance violations that subject the juvenile to the possibility of a forfeiture, the legislature clearly wanted to reserve arrest to those circumstances that were deemed sufficiently serious by local authorities to warrant the imposition of a monetary penalty.). As violation of the Curfew is not a delinquent act, the Curfew's authorization of arrest is in conflict with the Children's Code, as the district judge concluded. {17} The Children's Shelter Care Act, NMSA 1978, §§ 32A-9-1 to 32A-9-7 (1993), further supports the conclusion that the Children's Code preempts the Curfew because it criminalizes youthful behavior which, if committed by an adult, is not a crime. The Legislature finds and declares that appropriate and distinct programs of supervision and care for children are required to fulfill the purposes of the Children's Code ...; that many children are needlessly detained in secured facilities on charges for acts that would not be criminal if they were committed by an adult; that these children would benefit from either immediate return to the family or placement in shelter-care homes or nonsecured shelter-care facilities.... NMSA 1978, § 32A-9-2 (1993) (emphasis added). We believe that the specific language of this section further indicates that the Children's Code preempts the authority of municipalities to enact or enforce curfew ordinances which subject minors to incarceration for activity which is lawful if committed by an adult. {18} The Legislature has clearly expressed that acts committed by children which would not be unlawful if committed by adults are not delinquent. We believe that the Legislature has balanced the need to control the behavior of minors against the serious label of delinquent and the harsh sanction of incarceration, and chosen to reserve these penalties for behavior which is unlawful when committed by adults. The Legislature clearly wishes to treat children differently than delinquent offenders when they engage in misbehavior that is not unlawful for adults. The stated purposes of the Curfew are to protect minors from each other and others, to enforce parental control, and to protect the public from juvenile criminal activities. Section 12-5-9(A)(2). Incarceration of up to ninety days appears to be at odds with the purpose of protecting minors from each other and others. Our research reveals few other juvenile curfew ordinances which impose incarceration upon minors for a violation of a curfew. [3] See, e.g., Hutchins v. District of Columbia, 188 F.3d 531 (D.C.Cir.1999) (en banc) (noting that the penalty for a minor in violation of the act is twenty-five hours of community service and suspension of a driver's license for up to one year, and upholding the constitutionality of the curfew); Schleifer ex rel. Schleifer v. City of Charlottesville, 159 F.3d 843, 857-58 (4th Cir.1998) (observing that the penalties for minors violating curfew include verbal warnings, written warnings, and a fine of up to $250, Va.Code Ann. § 18.2-11(d) (Michie 1996), and upholding the constitutionality of the curfew), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1018, 119 S.Ct. 1252, 143 L.Ed.2d 349 (1999); Qutb v. Strauss, 11 F.3d 488, 491, 496 (5th Cir.1993) (noting that a minor in violation of the curfew is subject to a fine not to exceed $500, and concluding that the curfew is constitutional); Village of Deerfield v. Greenberg, 193 Ill.App.3d 215, 140 Ill.Dec. 530, 550 N.E.2d 12, 14 (1990) (upholding constitutionality of a curfew ordinance, and noting that a violation is a petty offense which results in a ten to 100 dollar fine). But see Nunez v. City of San Diego, 114 F.3d 935 (9th Cir.1997) (noting that a minor convicted of a curfew violation commits a misdemeanor, and holding that the curfew is an unconstitutional burden on parents' fundamental rights and is not a reasonable time, place, and manner restriction under the First Amendment). {19} We hold that the Curfew is preempted. However, this holding does not leave the City without other remedies to alleviate perceived and actual problems with juvenile misbehavior. Regardless of the time of day at which they occur, the specific examples of juvenile misbehavior which the City cites in its brief, such as unsupervised children under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and young girls at a motel in the company of unrelated adult men, seem to be illustrative of what is meant by children endangered by their surroundings under NMSA 1978, § 32A-3B-3(A)(4) (1993). Although we reject the City's attempt to characterize its STOP program enforcement scheme as one involving protective custody, we do not rule out the authority of law enforcement officers to take children into protective custody under Section 32A-3B-3(A)(4) when all requirements of the Children's Code and the New Mexico Constitution are satisfied.