Court Opinion

ID: 9681466
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:51:01.937262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:34.118440
License: Public Domain

DONNELLY, Judge,
concurring.
This case involves the validity of § 302.-181, RSMo Supp.1983, which requires that a Missouri driver’s license “shall bear the licensee’s social security or tax identifying number, if the licensee has one * * Appellant King refused to disclose his social security number alleging a violation of his right of privacy. Appellant Penner refused to disclose his social security number alleging a violation of his right of privacy and an interference with his rights of conscience. Their applications for licenses were denied. Accordingly, this case presents an apparent conflict between the will of the State and individual rights.
The source of our determination lies in the articulation of the relationship between the people of Missouri and their government in Article I of our Constitution.
Section 1. Source of political power —origin, basis and aim of government. — That all political power is vested and derived from the people; that all government of right originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole.
Section 2. Promotion of general welfare — natural rights of persons— equality under the law — purpose of government. — That all constitutional government is intended to promote the general welfare of the people; that all persons have a natural right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry; that all persons are created equal and are entitled to equal rights and opportunity under the law; that to give security to these things is the principal office of government, and that when *893government does not confer this security, it fails in its chief design.
Section 3. Powers of the people over internal affairs, constitution and form of government. — That the people of this state have the inherent, sole and exclusive right to regulate the internal government and police thereof, and to alter and abolish their Constitution and form of government whenever they may deem it necessary to their safety and happiness, provided such change be not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.
Our Constitution also acknowledges the individual’s rights of conscience and privacy. It expressly provides that “all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; that no human authority can control or interfere with the rights of conscience; * * *.” Mo. Const. art. I, § 5. There is no express recognition of the right of privacy in our Constitution. However, in Barber v. Time, Inc., 348 Mo. 1199, 1205, 1206, 159 S.W.2d 291, 294 (1942), this Court stated that “[t]he basis of the right of privacy is the right to be let alone” and that “the right of privacy ⅜ * * is, or at least grows out of, a constitutional right.”
The powers of the State and the rights of individuals coexist in a tenuous balance. The nature of this relationship has been addressed by the scholars:
“Liberty of conscience is limited * * * by the common interest in public order and security. * * * The government’s right to maintain public order and security is an enabling right, a right which the government must have if it is to carry out its duty of impartially supporting the conditions necessary for everyone’s pursuit of his interests and living up to his obligations as he understands them. * * * [But] liberty of conscience is to be limited only when there is a reasonable expectation that not doing so will damage the public order which the government should maintain. * * The limitation of liberty is justified only when it is necessary for liberty itself, to prevent an invasion of freedom that would be still worse.” J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice 212, 213, 215 (1971). “[T]he state must limit its coercion to protecting what free and rational persons acknowledge and accept as the general conditions of life, integrity, and security that are necessary to pursue the ends defined by their independent consciences.” Richards, Conscience, Human Rights, and the Anarchist Challenge to the Obligation to Obey the Law, 18 Ga.L.Rev. 771, 780 (1984). “The minimal state treats us as inviolate individuals, who may not be used in certain ways by others as means or tools or instruments or resources; it treats us as persons having individual rights with the dignity this constitutes. Treating us with respect by respecting our rights, it allows us, individually or with whom we choose, to choose our life and to realize our ends and our conception of ourselves, insofar as we can, aided by the voluntary cooperation of other individuals possessing the same dignity. How dare any state or group of individuals do more. Or less.” R. Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia 333-34 (1974).
The State is free to assert the common interest “in accordance with its own conception of policy and fairness, unless in so doing it offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.” Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105, 54 S.Ct. 330, 332, 78 L.Ed. 674 (1934). Mr. Justice Cardozo called this relationship “ordered liberty.” Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 58 S.Ct. 149, 82 L.Ed. 288 (1937).
The essential question here is: When a choice must be made between a statute which purports to serve a common public interest and the right to be let alone, which shall yield? This is a question we must answer as the ultimate arbiter between the State and the individual. See B. Siegan, Economic Liberties and the Constitution 317 (1980).
*894In State v. Kennedy, 295 Or. 260, 666 P.2d 1316, 1321 (1983), the Supreme Court of Oregon said:
“This court like others has high respect for the opinions of the Supreme Court, particularly when they provide insight into the origins of provisions common to the state and federal bills of rights rather than only a contemporary ‘balance’ of pragmatic considerations about which reasonable people may differ over time and among the several states. It is therefore to be expected that counsel and courts often will refer to federal decisions, or to commentary based on such decisions, even in debating an undecided issue under state law. Lest there be any doubt about it, when this court cites federal opinions in interpreting a provision of Oregon law, it does so because it finds the views there expressed persuasive, not because it considers itself bound to do so by its understanding of federal doctrines. * * *.”
In the manner of Oregon, I would borrow from the United States Supreme Court what is persuasive and would “begin * * *.” to meaningfully implement the provisions of the Missouri Bill of Rights.” Baker v. State, 584 S.W.2d 65, 72 (Mo. banc 1979) (Donnelly, J., dissenting). “[S]tate courts no less than federal are and ought to be the guardians of our liberties.” Brennan, State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, 90 Harv.L.Rev. 489, 491 (1977).
However, I serve no useful purpose by dissenting again and again.
I concur.