Opinion ID: 891641
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Policy and Legislative Intent Support Limiting Boone and Johnson

Text: {28} At the time the New Mexico Supreme Court filed its opinion in Boone, overruling the Court of Appeals by a narrow 3-2 margin, its holding was recognized as problematic. Justice Walters wrote a dissent, arguing that the majority opinion goes too far. Boone, 105 N.M. at 228, 731 P.2d at 371 (Walters, J., and Sosa, J., dissenting). Foreshadowing what was to come, Justice Walters was concerned that [t]he rationale of the majority opinion would apply as easily to anyone sitting in a parked car in front of his own house or in front of any establishment, if the arresting officer smelled alcohol and observed slurred speech. Id. In addition to raising concerns that such conduct is not clearly proscribed by the express language of the DWI statute, Justice Walters criticized the opinion for the convoluted rationale behind importing the definition of driver into the DWI law. Id. Similarly, Chief Justice Minzner and Justice Franchini joined in a forceful dissent to Johnson, raising concerns about whether Boone was correctly decided. Johnson, 2001-NMSC-001, ¶ 34, 130 N.M. 6, 15 P.3d 1233 (Minzner, C.J., and Franchini, J., dissenting). Chief Justice Minzner found the Boone Court's logic ... unclear. Id. ¶ 36. To conclude that the term drives is coextensive with the statutory definition of driver and thus includes all situations where a driver is in actual physical control of a vehicle seems to me to require something more than the statutory analysis we performed in Boone. Perhaps we should never have equated the two terms and instead should have restricted our remarks to stating that the seriousness of the DWI problem in our state justified equating the two terms, but that such a task requires legislative therapy, not judicial surgery. Id. (citation omitted). Similarly, the Court of Appeals, in deciding this very case, voiced concern over Johnson's broad language that is rooted in Boone: Were we to analyze this case on a clean slate, we would reverse based on the reasoning set forth in the dissent written by Justice Minzner in Johnson. Sims, 2008-NMCA-017, ¶ 12, 143 N.M. 400, 176 P.3d 1132 (citations omitted). Resurrecting concerns from earlier dissents, the Court of Appeals majority and dissenting opinions in Sims both urged this Court to take another look at what constitutes driving while intoxicated. Id. ¶¶ 12, 15. {29} While we agree that elements of Boone and Johnson go too far, we adhere to our understanding that [t]he purpose of our DWI legislation is to protect the public from the risk of harm posed by intoxicated drivers[,] Johnson, 2001-NMSC-001, ¶ 17, 130 N.M. 6, 15 P.3d 1233, and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the people of New Mexico. Id. ¶ 6. The policy underlying the DWI statute is to prevent individuals from driving or exercising actual physical control over a vehicle when they, either mentally or physically, or both, are unable to exercise the clear judgment and steady hand necessary to handle a vehicle with safety both to themselves and the public. Id. ¶ 17 (citation omitted). As we confirmed in Johnson, the legislature recognized this significant public interest and potential harm when it drafted Section 66-8-102 and made the act of driving while intoxicated a crime, in and of itself, regardless of the intent of the accused. Harrison, 115 N.M. at 77, 78, 846 P.2d at 1086, 1087; accord Johnson, 2001-NMSC-001, ¶ 17, 130 N.M. 6, 15 P.3d 1233 (affirming DWI is a strict liability crime). However, we also recognize that extending DWI liability to an individual who gets behind the wheel in the parking lot of a public restaurant or bar only to realize that he or she is too intoxicated to drive ... despite the fact that this decision not to drive is a preferable outcome to having the intoxicated person put the car in motion is not clearly supported by the Legislature. See State v. Wenger, 1999-NMCA-092, ¶ 17, 127 N.M. 625, 985 P.2d 1205, reversed by Johnson, 2001-NMSC-001, ¶ 24, 130 N.M. 6, 15 P.3d 1233. Creating this sort of liability could provoke an unscrupulous driver to take his or her chances on the road, rather than sleeping it off in the car, because it is possible to be arrested for DWI despite having formed the conscious intent not to drive. The many public service announcements regarding DWI suggest that the public has become more aware of the need for designated drivers or, in the absence of designated drivers, to keep from driving their vehicles while intoxicated. {30} In Johnson, we held that the clear purpose of the `actual physical control' element of the DWI statute is to deter persons from placing themselves in a situation in which they can directly commence operating a vehicle while they are intoxicated[.] 2001-NMSC-001, ¶ 19, 130 N.M. 6, 15 P.3d 1233. That language, however, was borrowed almost directly from an Ohio case reviewing a city ordinance that expressly prohibited actual physical control of a vehicle while intoxicated. Id. (citing Kelley, 351 N.E.2d at 86 (`No person who is under the influence of alcohol or a drug of abuse ... shall operate or be in actual physical control of any vehicle within this city.' (citation omitted))). Kelley held that the purpose of the actual physical control element of the city ordinance in question was to deter persons from being found under circumstances in which they can directly commence operating a vehicle while they are under the influence of alcohol or particular drugs. 351 N.E.2d at 87. {31} Consequently, we agree that the dicta in Johnson identifying the purpose of actual physical control as deter[ring] persons from placing themselves in a situation in which they can directly commence operating a vehicle while they are intoxicated was overly broad. 2001-NMSC-001, ¶ 19, 130 N.M. 6, 15 P.3d 1233. The facts of this case exemplify how this language could be misinterpreted to allow a conviction for conduct the Legislature did not intend to proscribe. Otherwise, rather than driving while intoxicated, it would be parked while intoxicated. We are confident that the intent element will align actual physical control with the legislative intent identified in Boone and Johnson. {32} To the extent that our prior decisions in Johnson and Boone conflict with our holding today, we limit those holdings in accord with this opinion. While we recognize that the statutory construction employed in Boone remains questionable, we note that since Boone was decided, at least two other jurisdictions have adopted an identical approach with their respective DWI legislation, incorporating actual physical control from the statutory definition for driver into the substantive provision delimiting drive. That other jurisdictions with similar DWI provisions have relied on the same logic and approach as this Court buttresses the essential holding and rationale employed in Boone.