Opinion ID: 2087654
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Which Enhancement is Proper?

Text: Chapter 9-11-2 provides progressively severe penalties for defendants who are repeatedly convicted of operating a vehicle while intoxicated. It covers two kinds of violations: (1) operating with less than .10% blood alcohol content or with blood containing a schedule I or II controlled substance, a class C misdemeanor, and (2) operating while intoxicated, a class A misdemeanor. Ind. Code Ann. §§ 9-11-2-1 to -2 (West Supp. 1988). [8] The penalties for these offenses become progressively more severe when committed within five years, § 9-11-2-3 (West Supp.1988), [9] when resulting in serious bodily injury, § 9-11-2-4 (West Supp.1988), [10] and when resulting in death, § 9-11-2-5 (West Supp.1988). [11] Punishment for repeated or aggravated violations is obviously worse than those for first-time violations, with the most severe penalty being imposed for the worst offense (class C felony for operation of a vehicle while intoxicated causing death). Not only does Chapter 9-11-2 include this detailed system of progressive punishment for O.W.I.'s based on frequency and severity, but it is also part of a greater scheme of progressive punishment for offenses involving motor vehicles. See Ind.Code Ann. § 9-12-1-4 (West Supp.1988). [12] Repeated violations of Chapter 9-11-2 that fall within the short, statutorily defined periods designated in Section 9-12-1-4 subject a defendant to sentence enhancement as a habitual violator. Id. Once adjudicated a habitual violator the court may enhance the defendant's sentence even more severely. Obviously, the legislature intended this framework to impose gradual punishment in direct proportion to the offenses. In contrast, the habitual substance offender statute broadly defines the activities triggering enhancement as any Class A misdemeanor or a felony in which the possession, use, abuse, delivery, transportation, or manufacture of alcohol or drugs is a material element of the crime. § 35-50-2-10(a). A court may enhance a defendant's sentence by up to eight years under this statute where he commits three unrelated substance offenses. Id. The statute does not provide any further progressive punishments, regardless of the frequency or severity of the offenses, so long as the offense is a class A misdemeanor or greater. The two punishment schemes at issue in this action are markedly different. Chapter 9-11-2 delineates the specific combination of alcohol and operating a vehicle required for conviction, as well as the particular time frame within which it must occur. By contrast, Section 30-50-2-10 broadly defines the substances and activity which triggers the habitual substance offender enhancement, and does not contain progressive punishments based on the frequency or severity. Moreover, this offense is not part of a larger scheme of progressive punishment. Ultimately, our analysis of the two statutory schemes reveals Chapter 9-11-2 as the more detailed and specific; Section 35-50-10-2 remains a general prohibition on repeat offenses regardless of the activity or controlled substance involved. The former therefore supersedes the latter. See Sanders, 466 N.E.2d at 428 (employing statute specifically defining defenses to crime's required mens rea, rather than statute dealing with culpability in general terms). Chapter 9-11-2 is thus the only enhancement to which Freeman should have been subject. Our conclusion on this point is consistent with our treatment of a nearly identical question in Stanek v. State (1992), Ind., 603 N.E.2d 152. In Stanek we held former Article 12 of the Motor Vehicles title, [13] which prohibited various traffic offenses, to be a habitual offender statute because it provided increasingly serious penalties for those it define[d] as habitual violators of traffic laws. Id. at 153. Acknowledging that the language of Article 12 and the general habitual offender statute [14] permitted a court to twice enhance Stanek's sentence, we concluded that the legislature did not intend such a result. Rather, because Article 12 was a discreet, separate, and independent habitual offender statute, this Court held the legislature intended that only Article 12 be used to enhance Stanek's sentence. Id. at 153-54. We see the same sort of relationship in the statutes before us today. Because Chapter 9-11-2 is the statute that specifically regulates punishment for convictions, it supersedes Section 35-50-2-10.