State v. Thompson, 5566

• Decision Date: 18 August 1953
• Docket Number: No. 5566,5566
• Citation: 57 N.M. 459,1953 NMSC 72,260 P.2d 370
• Parties: STATE v. THOMPSON.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Page 370

260 P.2d 370

57 N.M. 459

STATE v. THOMPSON.

No. 5566.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Aug. 18, 1953.

Richard H. Robinson, Atty. Gen., Hilario Rubio, Asst. Atty. Gen., and C. C. McCulloh, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.

Neal & Girand, Hobbs, for appellee.

LUJAN, Justice.

The State has brought this appeal to defend the constitutional validity of Section 41-418 of the 1941 Compilation, which provides:

'Any person or persons who may skin or remove from the carcass, any part of the hide of any neat cattle found dead, without permission from the owner, shall be deemed guilty of larceny, and on conviction thereof shall be punished in the manner provided by law for the punishment of larceny: Provided, nothing herein shall be deemed to prevent the skinning of animals killed by railroad companies, by the employees of any railroad company by which such stock may have been killed.'

The appellee was charged by information with violation of the above section. The specific charge in the information is that the defendant did, in Lea County, New Mexico, on or about November 23, 1951, skin one neat calf belonging to G. H. Bingham, without permission from said owner. The appellee moved to quash the information, and the appeal was taken from an order sustaining the motion and quashing the information. The grounds upon which the motion to quash are based are that the statute upon which the information was drawn is unconstitutional. The district court considered the act in question unconstitutional and held it void because: (1) It discriminates against all persons except employees of railroad companies by whom cattle have been killed; (2) that its meaning is so uncertain, vague and indefinite, and violates the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States and the due process clause of the State Constitution; (3) that the statute attempts to prohibit acts decreeing said acts to be larceny when the acts attempted to be prohibited by the statute have no relation whatever to the crime of larceny nor does the statute contemplate any of the necessary elements of the crime of larceny as being necessary ingredients of the offense; (4) that the statute is too vague, uncertain and indefinite to be enforced, and does not constitute a reasonable exercise of police power, in that it does not appear that it had for its enactment the prevention of manifest and anticipated evils or the preservation of the public health, safety, morals or general welfare.

It readily appears that the section in question provides for the punishment of all persons who skin or remove the hide from the carcass of neat cattle found dead without the permission of the owner, but exempts all employees of railroad companies so doing when the animal is killed by the railroad company. It is well settled that the Legislature may classify for legislative purposes without offending against the constitutional requirement that the laws must be general. But this power is limited by the requirement that the classification must rest upon some rational and substantial basis inherent in the subject-matter, some difference in situation which distinguishes those within the class from those without, and which rationally justifies different or unequal treatment. Unless there is such a legal basis for classification, penalties imposed by criminal statutes must apply equally, without privileges or immunities on the one hand or additional burdens upon the other. These principles are fundamental. Neither the federal nor the state provisions relating to privileges and immunities prohibit the legislature to classify objects or persons who may become subject to the provisions of a law to the exclusion of others. The rule is stated in 16 C.J.S., Constitutional Law, Sec. 489, as follows:

'* * * if the legislature has power to deal with the subject matter of the classification, and there is a reasonable ground for the classification and the law operates equally on all within the same class, it is valid, even though the act confers different rights or imposes different burdens on the several classes, * * *.'

Due process of law does not prohibit classification for legislative purposes. In 16 C.J.S., Constitutional Law, Sec. 569, (3) Exercise of Legislative Power. (Classification) We find the following language:

'* * * The guaranty of 'due process of law' or 'law of the land' has often been considered in connection with class legislation, it generally being held that the guaranty does not prohibit classification for the purpose of legislation, provided there is a natural and reasonable basis therefor, and is not arbitrary or capricious, and is based on a substantial difference between those to whom it applies and those to whom it does not apply, and provided the law is so framed as to extend to and embrace equally all persons who are or may be in the like situation and circumstances.'

The following cases are cited in support of the text: Lloyd Garretson Co. v. Robinson, 178 Wash. 601, 35 P.2d 504; Pauly v. Keebler, 175 Wis. 428, 185 N.W. 554; Schaaf v. South Dakota Rural Credits Board, 39 S.D. 377, 164 N.W. 964; Barrington v. Barrington, 206 Ala. 192, 89 So. 512, 17 A.L.R. 789.

The equal protection of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and Article 2, Section 18 of the State Constitution have for all practical purposes the same effect. They constitute a guaranty that all persons subject to state legislation shall be treated alike under similar circumstances and conditions in privileges conferred and liabilities imposed. They guarantee only the protection enjoyed by other persons or classes in the same place or situation and under like circumstances. 16 C.J.S., Constitutional Law, Sec. 502; People v. England, 140 Cal.App. 310, 35 P.2d 565; Ex parte Wilson, 330 Mo. 230, 48 S.W.2d 919. It follows that legislation may be limited in scope and adjusted to various situations. If it makes no arbitrary or unreasonable distinction within the sphere of its operation and accords substantially equal and uniform treatment to all persons similarly situated, the law complies with the equality provisions. State v. Safeway Stores, 106 Mont. 182, 76 P.2d 81. Thus both classification and discrimination or distinction may be made in a law, provided the discrimination or distinction has a reasonable foundation or rational basis and is not entirely arbitrary. Hutcheson v. Atherton, 44 N.M. 144, 99 P.2d 462; 16 C.J.S., Constitutional Law, Sec. 505. The constitutional guarantees of equal protection and against special privileges and immunities have ever been construed in the light of the right of the state to exercise its police power. In his works on Constitutional Limitations, 8th Ed., Vol. 2, p. 813, Cooley, says:

'But a state may classify with reference to an evil to be prevented, and if the class discriminated against is, or reasonable might be, considered to define those from whom the evil mainly is to be feared, it properly may be picked out. A lack of abstract symmetry does not matter. The question is a practical one dependent upon experience. Mr. Justice Holmes, in delivering the opinion of the United States Supreme Court, said: 'The demand for symmetry ignores the specific difference that experience is supposed to have shown to have marked the class. It is not enough to invalidate the law that others may do the same thing and go unpunished, if, as a matter of fact, it is found that the danger is characteristic of the class named. The state may direct its law against what it deems the evil as it actually exists without covering the whole field of possible abuses." (Emphasis ours.)

Based upon these general principles, it seems to us that the classification appearing in the questioned section is entirely constitutional.

The next ground upon which the motion to quash was...