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State v. Druktenis1/30/2004
connection with regulation of real estate brokerage through the police power of the State as to public welfare, and in connection with a State constitutional Article II, Section 18 attack, that " large discretion is necessarily vested in the Legislature to determine, not only what the interests of the public require, but what measures are necessary for the protection of such interests"); Arnold, 45 N.M. at 69, 109 P.2d at 787 (stating that the Legislature has "wide latitude . . . to determine the necessity for protecting the peace, health, safety, morals, and general welfare of the people"); State v. Edgington, 99 N.M. 715, 719, 663 P.2d 374, 378 (Ct. App. 1983) (stating that under rational basis review the party attacking a statutory classification must show it "serves no valid governmental interest, is unreasonable and arbitrary as to amount to mere caprice").
The State, without question, has a legitimate and compelling interest in protecting the public from sex offenders, and the notification provisions are unquestionably rationally related to that goal. We think it proper to defer to our Legislature's judgment as to a protective course of action in regard to persons convicted of the notification-triggering sex offenses. We will not, as long as rational basis is the scrutiny slot through which we review statutes, look behind the Legislature's over-inclusive classification unless it "rests on grounds wholly irrelevant to the achievement of the State's objective," and, as long as "any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it." McGowan, 366 U.S. at 425-26. Nor can we say that the presumption of recidivism as to the notification-triggering crimes is wholly arbitrary. Cf. Cummings, 1996-NMSC-035, 40 (upholding medical malpractice statute of repose because Legislature's solution was rationally related to solving a perceived problem, even though the solution was "to preclude almost all malpractice claims from being brought more than three years after the act of malpractice").
We do not doubt that work and peaceable life in a community play an important role in our free society, and are generally not to be burdened with government closely looking over our shoulders and tracing our every step. However, although we think these are important interests, in the present circumstances, we also see these interests as much as factors in an individual's chances for economic and social success, development as a good citizen, and future participation in political and community life, which move the interests even more in tandem with the rational basis scrutiny. Cf. Trujillo III, 1998-NMSC-031, 28 (stating that the damages cap "attempt to regulate the burdens and benefits of economic life, and in doing so, subject to rational basis scrutiny"); Marrujo, 118 N.M. at 757-58, 887 P.2d at 751-52 (stating that rational basis scrutiny applies in economic and social legislation, as well as personal activities that do not involve fundamental rights); Richardson, 107 N.M. at 692-93, 763 P.2d at 1157-58 (stating that " raditionally, the United States Supreme Court long had employed . . . minimum scrutiny, or the rational basis test, when reviewing social and economic legislation"); see also Lujan v. Colo. State Bd. of Educ., 649 P.2d 1005, 1018 (Colo. 1982) (en banc) (refusing, in part for the same reasons, to elevate the right to public education to a fundamental right); Edgington, 99 N.M. at 718, 663 P.2d at 377 (following the holding in San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973), that education is not a fundamental right, and applying a rational basis standard in determining constitutionality of school attendance law). In considering the interests Defendant asserts in the present c
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