Opinion ID: 1428240
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Statute Exceeds State's Legitimate Police Power

Text: A statute is a valid exercise of the police power if it: (1) corrects or protects against some evil; and (2) bears a reasonable and substantial relationship to accomplishing its purpose. See State v. Brayman, 110 Wash.2d 183, 193, 751 P.2d 294 (1988). The evil here is drunk driving, which is what the statute was designed to prevent. Crediford, 130 Wash.2d at 754, 927 P.2d 1129. However the subsections at issue do not necessarily promote this legitimate purpose. The statute provides: (1) A person is guilty of driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or any drug if the person drives a vehicle within this state: (a) And the person has 0.10 grams or more of alcohol per two hundred ten liters of breath within two hours after driving, as shown by analysis of the person's breath made under RCW 46.61.506; or (b) And the person has 0.10 grams or more by weight of alcohol in the person's blood within two hours after driving, as shown by analysis of the person's blood made under RCW 46.61.506; or (c) While the person is under the influence of or affected by intoxicating liquor or any drug; or (d) While the person is under the combined influence of or affected by intoxicating liquor and any drug. Former RCW 46.61.502 (1994) (emphasis added). [2] The obvious purpose of the statute is to make it a crime to drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, not reinstate prohibition. Subsections (c)-(d) of the statute bear a substantial relationship to the accomplishment of this purpose by prohibiting operation of a vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor and/or any drug. Subsections (a)-(b), however, criminalize postdriving intoxication without regard to scientific principles of absorption by which the level of intoxication-while-driving may be determined. [3] Subsections (a)-(b) therefore do not bear the necessary substantial relationship to the statute's purpose to be a valid exercise of the police power. This court examined an analogous statute in City of Seattle v. Pullman, 82 Wash.2d 794, 514 P.2d 1059 (1973). There a Seattle ordinance banned loitering by those under the age of 18 after 10:00 p.m. We held the ordinance exceeded the scope of the police power of the state because it failed to distinguish between harmful and harmless behavior. We recognized that the state had a legitimate interest to promote the well-being of minors but held that a curfew did not reasonably relate to that interest and therefore violated legally protected rights. Likewise, subsections (a)-(b) of this statute criminalize persons with a postdriving breath or blood alcohol concentration (BAC) over 0.10, but do not reasonably promote the state interest involvedprohibiting driving with a BAC of 0.10 percent or greater. In another similar case we struck down an arson statute which banned willful burning of property, finding it exceeded the police power for want of distinction between harmful arson and the election of owner to incinerate his own worthless property. State v. Spino, 61 Wash.2d 246, 250, 377 P.2d 868 (1963). Legislative history demonstrates the real motive behind subsections (a)-(b) of the statute is not to prohibit drunk driving but to more easily obtain convictions. See Crediford, 130 Wash.2d at 764 n. 1, 927 P.2d 1129 (Sanders, J., concurring) (quoting from one of statute's legislative sponsors that bill is one prosecutors wanted and would be helpful in some prosecutions for drunk driving). However postdriving drunkenness does not bear a substantial or necessary relationship to the legitimate state goal of banning drunk driving unless driving while impaired is an element of the crime. Unfortunately this element is omitted in subsections (a)-(b). See also Commonwealth v. Barud, 545 Pa. 297, 681 A.2d 162, 167 (1996) (statute identical to Washington's unconstitutional as it precludes the admission of competent evidence that an accused's BAC was actually below the legal limit at the time of driving. ).