State v. GarlandState v. Garland
Defendant, a resident of New Jersey, appealed from a judgment of the Municipal Court of the City of Hackensack, wherein he was found guilty of violating N.J.S. 2A:169A-2 and-4 for failing to register as a narcotics offender and failing to carry an identification card.
The trial de novo was pro forma, all material facts to support conviction for violation of both sections of the act being
Defendant had pleaded guilty to violations of N.J.S. 2A:170-8 (use of narcotic drugs) and 2A:170-77.5 (possession of narcotic paraphernalia), and on December 17, 1965 was placed on probation in conjunction with voluntarily admitting himself for treatment at a neuropsychiatric institute
The attack on
“No constitutional protection is absolute. Traditionally, the courts have weighed each alleged assault on a constitutional right by comparing the social values, public or private, attending the measures impugned as invalid, with the degree of hazard if any to which the constitutional right or privilege was subjected by such conduct.” (at p. 533)
The precise question of the validity of a state statute requiring criminal registration does not appear to have been decided in a reported opinion in the United States, although a federal statute requiring registration of narcotic offenders has been upheld against various allegations of unconstitutionality.
Both Haynes and this case differ, of course, from the situation in Lambert v. People of State of California, 355 U.S. 225, 78 S.Ct. 240, 2 L.Ed.2d 228 (1957), wherein a conviction under a municipal ordinance requiring criminal registration was reversed, upon a holding that where a person did not know of the duty to register and there was no proof of the probability of such knowledge, he could not be convicted consistent with due process. Although the broad police power of a state is limited by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, innumerable registration laws have been sustained, even where convicted persons were unaware of the requirements, as Mr. Justice Frankfurter noted in his dissent in Lambert; therefore the holding of the 5 to 4 majority should be limited in its application, as, in his words, “an isolated deviation from the strong current of precedents — a derelict on the waters of the law * * *.”
Also to be distinguished are three decisions of the United States Supreme Court on January 29, 1968 (Haynes v. United States, 390 U.S. 62, 88 S.Ct. 709, 19 L.Ed.2d 906; Marchetti v. United States, 390 U.S. 85, 88 S.Ct. 722, 19 L.Ed.2d 923, and Grosso v. United States, 390 U.S. 39, 88 S.Ct. 697, 19 L.Ed.2d 889 holding, in part, that properly asserted constitutional privileges against self-incrimination preclude criminal convictions for failure to comply with registration requirements of the National Firearms Act,
Defendant‘s conviction for mere failure to register not being violative of the due process of law requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment, or under the facts of this case violative of his privilege against self-incrimination, I turn to defendant‘s remaining complaints of discrimination, cruel and unusual punishment, and restriction on his right to travel. Although constitutionality phraseology has been used, it is clear that defendant‘s real complaint is that the registration requirement imposes inconvenience and hardship upon him. Such pleas are properly addressed to the Legislature; it is not for the courts to review its discretion or determine the
Finally, defendant points out a peripheral problem which, although probably requiring judicial disposition in the future, need not be decided at this time. The statute in question would appear to require registration for the remainder of defendant‘s life — in seeming conflict with the policy of
For all the foregoing reasons I hold that the Narcotics Control Act, as applied to defendant under the facts of this case, is not violative of his constitutional rights and he is therefore guilty of failing to register under the provisions of