Court Opinion

ID: 9624900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:21:03.826838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:57.086176
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
concurring.
I do not believe that the balancing test used by the Court is an appropriate method of analysis with respect to the constitutional right of privacy. I doubt that the Court’s balancing test is anything more than a requirement that all statutes be reasonable. Under the test, as used in the majority opinion, it must first be determined whether a questioned statute has a legitimate purpose. When that is done, the next question is whether the statute sufficiently furthers that purpose so that there is a rational1 connection between means and ends. Once that question is affirmatively answered, as I view the test as applied here, the inquiry is in fact over and the statute is held constitutional. No real balancing is apparent.
Although I would not refer to it as balancing, the Court’s method of analysis is an entirely appropriate one where the question is whether a given statute satisfies the requirements of due process of law. Due process does mandate that all legislation have a legitimate purpose and that there be a rational relationship between that purpose and the means used to further it. Our case of Kingery v. Chapple, 504 P.2d 831 (Alaska 1972) stands for that proposition. Since the due process command of reasonableness applies to all legislation regardless of whether individually enumerated constitutional rights are involved, it is illogical to impose no other test where express constitutional rights are present. Otherwise, there would be no purpose in expressing them.
The right to privacy is an express right under the Alaska Constitution.2 If it is to be given the life it deserves by virtue of that position it should be defined and interpreted in our decisions. As each of the many separate categories of the right are present we should attempt to state in context what the right is and whether it applies to the case at hand.3 We should not simply assume its existence, and then balance it away wherever it is confronted with a reasonable statute.
In my opinion the principle encompassed by the constitutional right of privacy which is germane to this case is “the general proposition that the authority of the state to exert control over the individual extends only to activities of the individual which affect others or the public at large as it relates to matters of public health or safety, or to provide for the general welfare.” Ravin v. State, 537 P.2d 494, 509 (Alaska 1975) (footnote omitted).
*24John Stuart Mill in his essay On Liberty eloquently expressed this view:
[T]here is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest: comprehending all that portion of a person’s life and conduct which affects only himself or, if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary, and undeceived consent and participation. When I say only himself, I mean directly and in the first instance; for whatever affects himself may affect others through himself; and the objection which may be grounded on this contingency will receive consideration in the sequel. This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. . [T]he principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits, of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character, of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow, without impediment from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. .
No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
Because, as explained in the opinion of the court, there is responsible authority which indicates thát cocaine does sometimes cause anti-social behavior affecting the safety of others, I would hold that its use does not come within the right to privacy. I would not hold as the majority opinion does that cocaine use is a constitutionally protected activity and that such protection must give way to a reasonable statute.
While the results reached through the majority’s balancing test and through the approach I suggest are the same in this case they will not be in all cases.4 Balancing implies that legislators may overturn choices made by the framers of our constitution, as long as they do so reasonably. I cannot agree to that proposition.

. I use the word “rational” in the sense that it is used in Isakson v. Rickey, 550 P.2d 359, 362 (Alaska 1976) meaning “reasonable, not arbitrary, and . . having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation . . . .” quoting State v. Wylie, 516 P.2d 142, 145 (Alaska 1973).

. Article I, § 22 specifies, in part: “The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed.”

. Thomas Emerson, in his thorough and persuasive article, Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment, 72 Yale Law J. 877 (1963), advocates a similar process with regard to free speech.

. A third approach would be to regard the right to privacy as fundamental and require the state to justify any intrusion with a showing of a compelling interest. We adopted this approach in Gray v. State, 525 P.2d 524 (Alaska 1974).