Opinion ID: 1111406
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: doublethink and nepenthe State v. Baker

Text: In Baker, a consolidated appeal, multiple defendants had been charged with unlawful possession of marijuana in any amount under the recently enacted HRS § 712-1249 (Supp. 1974)the very statute at issue in the present matter. See supra note 2. The defendants moved to dismiss the charges on constitutional grounds. Obviously anchoring its analysis in the Abe/Levinson/ Kobayashi views as expressed in Kantner by virtue of which, in combination, a majority of this court had deemed the predecessor statute to HRS § 712-1249 to be an unconstitutional exercise of the state's police power, the district court placed on the State the burden of showing clearly and convincingly that the possession of marijuana[,] in violation of [HRS § 712-]1249 constitute[d] a harm either to the individual or the community. It held [that] the State had not met this burden and that [HRS § 712-]1249 violated the due process clauses of the State and United States Constitutions. Baker, 56 Haw. at 276, 535 P.2d at 1397. Accordingly, the district court held the statute unconstitutional insofar as it related to the possession of marijuana, id. at 273, 535 P.2d at 1395, and dismissed the charges. The prosecution appealed. Interestingly, it was left to retired Justice Lewis to author the Baker court's majority opinion. As she saw it, t[he] primary question on appeal [was] whether the trial court's reversal of the ordinary presumption of constitutionality was error. Id. at 276, 535 P.2d at 1397 (footnote omitted). Following this beacon, the Baker majority ruled in relevant part as follows: Defendants contend that the State's interest in proscribing marijuana is patently de minimis and does not warrant the application of a penal sanction to the mere possession of marijuana for personal use. In this argument[,] scant attention is paid to the presumption of constitutionality. [26] We first consider the State's interest in proscribing marijuana. For reasons which will appear, we do not distinguish at this point between commercial distribution[,] on the one hand, and possession for personal use, on the other. As the second part of our consideration of this matter[,] we proceed to the question of whether the legislature was warranted in making mere possession of marijuana a petty misdemeanor, with the concomitant penal sanctions prescribed for that offense. It is well settled that when a substance has been proscribed as harmful, the presumption of constitutionality applies although there are conflicting scientific views as to its harmful effects. This rule has been applied in marijuana cases. As stated in United States v. Kiffer, 477 F.2d 349 (2d Cir.1973):    recent discussions of this issue suggest that the present state of knowledge of the effects of marijuana is still incomplete and marked by much disagreement and controversy.    It is true that the rationalization for the criminalization of marihuana has shifted over time.    This, however, does not negate the possibility that the justification now principally relied upon may have some merit. (pp. 353-354).    [T]he question before us is a narrow one. It is whether it can fairly be said that Congress acted irrationally in prohibiting the commercial distribution of marihuana. We believe that the answer to that question is no.    (p. 355). .... We hold, as was held in Kiffer, supra, that the presumption of constitutionality applies and has not been rebutted.... Accordingly, at least so far as commercial distribution is concerned, marijuana may be proscribed. While defendants have not been charged with distribution, the charge of possession under [HRS § 712-]1249 brings before the court the question of the reasonable relation of this section to the object of the legislation as shown by the statute as a whole. It long has been established that[,] as part of its scheme to prohibit the sale of intoxicants within its borders, a state may adopt such measures as are reasonably appropriate or needful to render exercise of that power effective[,] including criminalization of mere possession of the prohibited product for personal use.... In holding that the State had the burden of showing clearly and convincingly that the prohibited activity constituted a harm either to the individual or to the community[,] the [district] court below began with the premise that: It is a fundamental right of liberty of a human being to conduct himself in a manner which neither harms himself nor others. To so approach the issue in this case is to begin with the wrong end of the stick. [27] ... ... [A]s stated in Crane v. Campbell, [245 U.S. 304, 38 S.Ct. 98, 62 L.Ed. 304 (1917) ]: ... [T]he right to hold intoxicating liquors for personal use is not one of those fundamental privileges of a citizen of the United States which no State may abridge. [28] A contrary view would be incompatible with the undoubted power to prevent manufacture, gift, sale, purchase or transportation of such articlesthe only feasible ways of getting them. An assured right of possession would necessarily imply some adequate method to obtain not subject to destruction at the will of the State. 245 U.S. at 308, 38 S.Ct. at 99. More recently, in Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 567-568, 89 S.Ct. 1243, 1249-1250, 22 L.Ed.2d 542 (1969), the Supreme Court of the United States considered, in an obscenity case, the proposition that prohibition of possession    is a necessary incident to statutory schemes prohibiting distribution. It held that, because first amendment rights were involved in that case, mere private possession of obscene material could not be made a crime. The court carefully distinguished the type of statute which is before us, saying in footnote 11: What we have said in no way infringes upon the power of the State or Federal Government to make possession of other items, such as narcotics, firearms, or stolen goods, a crime. Our holding in the present case turns upon the Georgia statute's infringement of fundamental liberties protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. [29] No First Amendment rights are involved in most statutes making mere possession criminal. ... [T]he holding in Stanley is inapplicable to a statute prohibiting the possession of marijuana.... While our State Constitution has a right of privacy provision, [30] we do not find in that provision any intent to elevate the right of privacy to the equivalent of a first amendment right. [31] The intention was to effectively protect the individual's wishes for privacy as a legitimate social interest, including protection against undue government inquiry    and regulation. [(Citing Stand. Comm. Rep. No. 55, reprinted in 1 Proceedings of the 1968 Constitutional Convention at 233-34.)] By the plain wording of the constitution[,] the right of privacy is protected only against unreasonable invasion. Alaska has added to its constitution, as a separate section of its bill of rights, [article I, section 22,] a provision that: The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed. The legislature shall implement this section. [32] In Gray v. State, 525 P.2d 524, 527-528 (Alaska 1974), the Supreme Court held that[,] under this amendment[,] a statute which impinges upon the right of privacy may be upheld only if it is necessary to further a compelling state interest. Reviewing a conviction for selling marijuana,... the court placed on the prosecution the burden of showing a compelling state interest to support the statute prohibiting the sale of marijuana. The case was remanded for an evidentiary hearing. ... We find nothing in our constitution or its history that leads to that conclusion. The presumption of constitutionality applies. In citing United States v. Kiffer, supra, 477 F.2d 349 (2d Cir.1973), we are not unmindful of that portion of the opinion which considers the argument    that[,] in the absence of compelling justification, the police power does not extend so far as to permit the Government to protect an individual against himself and that the concern for public health and safety is relevant only insofar as the actions of one individual may threaten the well-being of others. (477 F.2d at 354.) ... With all respect, we do not agree. And the holding in our own case of State v. Kantner, 53 Haw. 327, 493 P.2d 306 (1972), is not a precedent here, [33] because the only issue in Kantner was whether the legislature could include marijuana in the definition of a narcotic drug, it being conceded in that case that the State may properly regulate the possession of marijuana under the police power. We hold that a statute proscribing the commercial distribution of harmful substances may sweep within its ambit, as an enforcement measure, the possession of the substance for personal use. [34] That [HRS § 712-]1249 is such an enforcement measure is made abundantly clear by the provision limiting the offense to unlawful possession. [35] And since the issue here is the possession of contraband, State v. Cotton, 55 Haw. 138, 516 P.2d 709 (1973), ... and State v. Lee, 51 Haw. 516, 465 P.2d 573 (1970), the motorcycle helmet.... cases, are inapplicable. [36] Baker, 56 Haw. at 276-82, 535 P.2d at 1397-1401 (footnotes, some citations, and some internal quotation marks omitted) (some emphases added and some in original). Based substantially on the foregoing analysis, the Baker majority reversed the district court's orders dismissing the charges and remanded for further proceeding s. Id. at 284, 535 P.2d at 1402. As I will attempt to demonstrate, the majority opinion in Baker effected a deconstruction and reconstruction of this court's jurisprudential past that is utterly Orwellian in its scope and methodology. Indeed, the Baker majority literally went by the book: The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposedif all records told the same talethen the lie passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past, ran the Party slogan, controls the future; who controls the present controls the past. ... All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. Reality control, they called it; in Newspeak, doublethink. .... ... The past not only changed, but changed continuously.... ... Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun; today, [it was a sign of madness] to believe that the past is unalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic.... George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four 35-36, 79-80 (Harcourt, Brace and Company 1949) (emphasis deleted). The Baker majority's first and core feat of doublethink was its declaration that, in beginning with the premise that [i]t is a fundamental right of liberty of a human being to conduct himself in a manner which neither harms himself nor others, the district court had begun with the wrong end of the stick. Baker, 56 Haw. at 278-79, 535 P.2d at 1398. With this one dismissive sweep of the judicial hand, the Baker majority was able to finesse the implicit premise of Kraft, which at the time had remained fundamentally intact for forty years (and continues to remain so), that, wholly separate and apart from any consideration of the enumerated constitutional rights of individuals, the harm to others principle circumscribed the exercise of the state's police power to criminalize conduct. See supra section I.A. In doing so, the Baker majority avoided the need to acknowledge the augmentation of the Kraft analysis in Lee, namely, that in order for the public health, safety, and welfare to be generally affected, an individual's conduct must directly harm others and that, if it does not, the public interest is not affected and it is not properly the subject of the police power of the legislature. See supra note 27 and section I.B.1. That the Baker majority was fully aware that the state's police power is not constitutionally boundless is apparent from its oblique reference to the Abe thesis, albeit in the guise of quoting the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Kiffer. Baker, 56 Haw. at 281, 535 P.2d at 1400. But by the flippant comment that, [w]ith all respect, it d[id] not agree with the characterization of the Abe thesis in Kiffer, the Baker majority performed its second feat of doublethinkavoiding the need to deal on the merits with (1) the Abe thesis, as first articulated in Lee, see supra section I.B.2, later expanded in Kantner, see supra section I.C.1, and expressly endorsed by Justice Kobayashi in Cotton, see supra notes 7 and 9, or (2) Justice Levinson's analysis in Kantner, see supra section I.C.1. Which brings us to the Baker majority's thirdand most monumentalfeat of doublethink. By proclaiming Kantner not a precedent (or, in the Orwellian vein, an unprecedent) because the only issue in Kantner was whether the legislature could include marijuana in the definition of a `narcotic drug,' it being conceded ... that the State may properly regulate the possession of marijuana under the police power, Baker, 56 Haw. at 282, 535 P.2d at 1400, the Baker majority managed to ignore the unignorable: that, a mere three years previously, a three-member majority of the Kantner court (which represented the only outcome-dispositive and controlling authority on the subject in this jurisdiction) had agreed that, as a matter of constitutional law, the police power of the state did not extend to the criminalization of mere possession of marijuana for personal use. See supra section I.C.1. Thus did the Baker majority spin gold into straw and render untrue the truth that  two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. Nineteen Eighty-Four at 81 (emphasis in original). If the Baker majority was towing the Party's line, it did not, however, send Justice Kobayashi to Room 101. Rather, in the face of the doublethink permeating the majority opinion, he preserved Winston Smith's belief that [b]eing in a minority, even a minority of one, [does] not make you mad. There [is] truth and there [is] untruth, and if you cl[i]ng to the truth even against the whole world, you [are] not mad.... `Sanity is not statistical[.]' Nineteen Eighty-Four at 219. Concurring and dissenting, he wrote in relevant part: ... [I]n my opinion, the real question is whether, on the record, the [defendant] adduced evidence showing that the substantive provisions of the statute are arbitrary and capricious and void under the due process clause of the Hawaii State Constitution and the Constitution of the United States. In the trial below the [defendant] filed a motion to dismiss the charge filed against him and contended: 1. The statute is unconstitutional on the ground of unlawful assertion of police power. 2. The statute violates the constitutional guarantee of privacy. In support of the first contention[,] the [defendant] stated: The present state of scientific knowledge indicates that marijuana use has no effects on the individual that leads directly to harm to others. At most it can be argued that possession of marijuana is harmful to the possessor. Even assuming arguendo that possession of marijuana is harmful for the possessor, it cannot be statistically demonstrated by the [State] that the consequent physical injury is so widespread as to be of such grave concern to the public as to effect the public interest generally.... ( See State v. Lee, 51 Haw. 516, 521, 465 P.2d 573, 577 (1970) for appropriate test). In support of the second contention, the [defendant] argued: The right to personal privacy ... [is] a fundamental substantive constitutional right.... Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965); [t]he use of marijuana is a private act which is protected by this substantive right to privacy; [t]he actual use of marijuana involves no one other than the user.... .... In contrast[ ] with the minimum but controversial findings of possible harm to the individual in the use of marijuana, and [with] the total lack of findings that marijuana use would cause the user to directly or indirectly harm others, the proof of the harmful effects of two publicly accepted drugsalcohol and tobaccois well documented. The harmful effects of alcohol are numerous[.] .... Tobacco is one of the most physiologically damaging substances used by man. .... History shows that nation after nation, and several states in the United States[,] tried to curb the use of tobacco by criminalizing the cultivation, possession[,] and use of tobacco. However, criminalization had no effect in reducing and/or eliminating the use of tobacco. Record shows that tobacco acquired a greater number of addicts, notwithstanding the penal consequences. The history of the criminalization of the production, distribution, and consumption of alcohol is well documented in the tragic period of the prohibition era of 1920-1933. Alcohol prohibition was not repealed because alcohol is a harmless drug. Prohibition was repealed because it failed to discourage the consumers of alcohol, and, it created a monster in the form of organized crime syndicates controlling distribution of alcohol with its attendant violence. Upon consideration of the record, notwithstanding United States v. Kiffer, 477 F.2d 349 (2d Cir.1973)[,] cited by the majority of the court, I am compelled to conclude that the statute in question constitutes an arbitrary and capricious exercise of police powers by the [state]. I premise my opinion on the following reasons: 1. There is no conclusive proof that marijuana is a detrimental drug; 2. There is no proof that mere possession of marijuana harms the individual possessor; 3. There is no proof that mere possession of marijuana would cause the possessor to directly harm others; 4. Any possible harm to the individual in the use of marijuana is merely debatable; 5. There is no proof that mari[j]uana use leads the user to harm others; 6. It cannot be statistically demonstrated that the consequent physical and/or mental injury through the use of marijuana is so widespread as to affect the public interest generally; 7. Marijuana has not been proven to be an addictive drug; [and] 8. There is no evidence of any secondary harm to society resulting from any harm to the user of marijuana. .... In State v. Cotton, 55 Haw. 138, 516 P.2d 709 (1973), the court stated at 139, 516 P.2d at 710: We accept ... the fundamental tenet that the relationship between the individual and the state leaves no room for regulations which have as their purpose and effect solely the protection of the individual.... The proscription of possessing marijuana is, at best, solely to protect the individual user of marijuana. In my opinion, however, the real purpose of the criminalization of possession of marijuana is simply to perpetuate society's (majority of) prejudice against marijuana; a prejudice which I believe is based mainly upon inaccurate information. Clearly, the only confirmed harm of marijuana is, not in marijuana per se, but the laws which criminalize[ ] the possessor. The lives and careers of many thousands of possessors have been damaged or destroyed irrationally and oppressively. The interest of society generally has been seriously harmed by the unnecessary criminalization of a large segment of the people. Organized crime or crimes have been fostered by the act of the [state] in proscribing the possession of marijuana. In the exercise of [the state's] police powers, the law is clear: To justify the state in [thus] interposing its authority in behalf of the public, it must appear, first, that the interests of the public [generally, as distinguished from those of a particular class] require such interference; and, second, that the means are reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of the purpose, and not unduly oppressive upon individuals.... Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U.S. 590, 594-95, 82 S.Ct. 987, 990, 8 L.Ed.2d 130 (1962); Lawton v. Steele, 152 U.S. 133, 137, 14 S.Ct. 499, 501, 38 L.Ed. 385 (1894). In my opinion[,] the statute prohibiting the possession of marijuana fails to meet the above test. Mere debatable possible harm of marijuana on the individual user does not justify the [state] in interposing its authority in behalf of the public. Assuming arguendo [that] justification exists in proscribing the possession of marijuana, the means used to discourage the individual possession of marijuana is not reasonably necessary. The means used has not only failed to accomplish the purpose[,] but is irrational and unduly oppressive upon the individual marijuana users. It is ironic, indeed, that the inexplicable moral code of the majority of society accords the stamp of moral approval of two of the most harmful drugstobacco and alcoholby permitting the cultivation or manufacture, the distribution, and the general use thereof, without criminal penalties, except in extreme specific instances. Yet, in the case of marijuana, where there is no conclusive proof of its harmful effects, and where the possible harm is merely debatable, and further where there is no evidence showing that marijuana use or possession ... causes the user or possessor to harm others, the state totally proscribes, with criminal penalties, the mere possession of marijuana. I would affirm the result of the trial court's judgment for the reasons stated. Baker, 56 Haw. at 285, 288-92, 535 P.2d at 1402, 1404-06 (Kobayashi, J., concurring and dissenting) (some brackets, ellipsis points, and emphasis in original and some added) (footnotes omitted). With respect to this court's collected jurisprudence in Kraft, Lee, Cotton, and the  Kantner trio regarding the limits of the state's police power, it is apparent from the foregoing that Justice Kobayashi was, in substance, making the following plea to the Baker majority: But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it. You remember it. Nineteen Eighty-Four at 251. And it is equally apparent that the Baker majority was responding (albeit disingenuously), as did the diabolical O'Brien of George Orwell's imagination: I do not remember it. Id.