Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-11505 No. 6104
10-22-2014
STEVEN GOOD, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: T. Burke Wonnell, Attorney at Law, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Mary A. Gilson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and Michael C. Geraghty, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law. Trial Court No. 3AN-12-5357 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the District Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, David R. Wallace, Judge. Appearances: T. Burke Wonnell, Attorney at Law, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Mary A. Gilson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and Michael C. Geraghty, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee. Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Hanley, District Court Judge. Judge ALLARD.
Sitting by assignment made pursuant to article IV, section 16 of the Alaska Constitution and Administrative Rule 24(d).
Steven Good was convicted of attempted sixth-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance for mailing himself a package containing nineteen marijuana joints. Good appeals his conviction, asserting that the conduct for which he was convicted was constitutionally protected under the 1975 Alaska Supreme Court decision in Ravin v. State. Because the protections under Ravin do not extend to the conduct for which Good was convicted, we affirm Good's conviction.
537 P.2d 494 (Alaska 1975).
Factual background and prior proceedings
In May 2012, Steven Good, a resident of Florida, was on his way to Alaska when he purchased twelve grams of marijuana during a layover in New York. Good sent a FedEx package containing the marijuana (rolled into nineteen joints) to the Millennium Hotel in Anchorage, where he planned to stay. Good's name was on both the mailing address and the return address. When the package arrived at the Anchorage airport, a FedEx employee noticed an odor coming from the package and opened the package, discovering the marijuana. The police were then called.
The next day, Good checked out of the Millennium Hotel and went to retrieve the package at the FedEx facility at the airport, where he was intercepted by the police. Good waived his right to remain silent and admitted that the package contained marijuana and that he had sent the marijuana to himself.
Good was charged with attempted possession of a schedule VIA controlled substance (i.e., a controlled substance, including marijuana, that poses the lowest degree of danger or probable danger to a person or the public) in violation of AS 11.71.060(a)(1) and AS 11.31.100.
Prior to trial, Good filed a motion to dismiss, asserting that he had a right to possess a small amount of marijuana for personal use under the Alaska Supreme Court's decision in Ravin v. State. District Court Judge David R. Wallace ruled that the protections of Ravin did not extend to attempting to possess a mailed package of marijuana in public, and he therefore denied Good's motion to dismiss.
Following a bench trial on stipulated facts, Good was sentenced to 30 days with 30 days suspended, a $1000 fine with $750 suspended, and 1 year of unsupervised informal probation.
This appeal followed.
The constitutional right to privacy recognized in Ravin v. State does not extend to the public conduct for which Good was convicted
In Ravin, the Alaska Supreme Court held that, although there was no fundamental right to possess or ingest marijuana, the right to privacy under the Alaska Constitution protected the possession by adults of small quantities of marijuana in the home for personal use. The holding in Ravin was based specifically on "the distinctive nature of the home as a place where the individual's privacy receives special protection" and on the importance of the right to privacy in the home under the Alaska Constitution.
Id. at 502, 504.
Id. at 503-04; see Fraternal Order of Eagles v. Juneau, 254 P.3d 348, 356 (Alaska 2011) ("Our decision in Ravin was firmly rooted in the constitutional protection for privacy in the home ... ."); Sampson v. State, 31 P.3d 88, 94 (Alaska 2001) (quoting Ravin, 537 P.2d at 503) (emphasizing that the Ravin decision was based on the "distinctive nature of the home" in Alaska's statutory and jurisprudential history); Garhart v. State, 147 P.3d 746, 751 (Alaska App. 2006) ("The Ravin decision is not based on a purported right to ingest or possess marijuana. Rather, it is based on people's heightened expectation of privacy in their homes.").
As Good himself acknowledges, the conduct for which he was convicted — attempted possession of marijuana — involved conduct that occurred in public, not at home. The holding of Ravin is therefore not directly applicable to Good's case.
Good nevertheless argues that the reasoning underlying the Ravin holding should be extended to the possession (or attempted possession) of small amounts of marijuana in public, particularly where, as in his case, the possession is of a sealed container and the amount is consistent with personal use. Good further asserts that, in cases involving public possession of small amounts of marijuana, the State should bear the burden of demonstrating a legitimate state interest justifying its prosecution in that particular case.
As the State points out, the Alaska Supreme Court has previously declined to extend the protections of Ravin outside the home. Good's brief does not mention these cases, nor does he explain why this Court should extend the protections of Ravin when the Alaska Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to do so. As the State also points out, the most recent legislative amendments to Alaska's criminal marijuana laws, made in 2006, include extensive legislative findings regarding the dangers of marijuana and the state's interest in criminalizing the possession of even small amounts. Good's brief does not mention these legislative findings, nor does he explain why these findings are insufficient to establish a legitimate state interest in criminalizing the possession or attempted possession of any amount of marijuana outside the privacy of the home.
See, e.g., Fraternal Order of Eagles, 254 P.3d at 356; Sampson, 31 P.3d at 94; see also Garhart, 147 P.3d at 751.
See ch. 53, §§ 1-2, SLA 2006; cf. State v. American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, 204 P.3d 364, 366 (Alaska 2009) (declining, on ripeness grounds, to decide whether these legislative findings are sufficient to justify criminalizing personal-use-amounts of marijuana in the home).
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Given Good's failure to adequately explain or justify his argument that the protections of Ravin should be extended to possession of marijuana outside the home, we decline to rule that Ravin protects the conduct at issue in this case.
Conclusion
We AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.