Opinion ID: 2382190
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Maryland Statute

Text: The Maryland statutory provision at issue states in pertinent part: § 21-902. (a) Driving while intoxicated.  (1) A person may not drive or attempt to drive any vehicle while intoxicated. (2) A person may not drive or attempt to drive any vehicle while the person has an alcohol concentration of 0.10 or more as measured by grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood or grams of alcohol per 210 liters of breath as determined at the time of testing. (b) Driving while under the influence of alcohol.  A person may not drive or attempt to drive any vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. (c) Driving while under influence of drugs or drugs and alcohol.  (1) A person may not drive or attempt to drive any vehicle while he is so far under the influence of any drug, any combination of drugs, or a combination of one or more drugs and alcohol that he cannot drive a vehicle safely. Md.Code, Trans. § 21-902(a)-(c)(1). The Maryland legislature has not defined the term under the influence of alcohol, and neither of the parties have directed us to relevant Maryland case law interpreting the phrase. A recent decision of a federal district court in Maryland has interpreted driving under the influence of alcohol as driving a motor vehicle when an individual's normal judgment, perception, and/or coordination was adversely affected; that is, made worse to any extent by the consumption of an alcoholic beverage. United States v. Sauls, 981 F.Supp. 909, 919 (D.Md.1997) (emphasis added). [8] Moreover, in interpreting an earlier version of the statute, the Attorney General of Maryland opined that proof of unsafe operation is not a necessary element of the offenses of driving while intoxicated or driving while under the influence of alcohol. Opinion No. 83-016, 68 M.D. Op. Atty. Gen. 441 (May 2, 1983). The Attorney General indicated that the fact that the General Assembly did not include the requirement that he cannot drive a vehicle safely in sections (a) and (b), while including it in section (c), implies its deliberate rejection in the former sections. Id. Notably, the current versions of sections (a) and (b) also omit this requirement while section (c) retains it. Even though § 21-902(b) omits the phrase to a degree which renders the person incapable of safe driving, PennDOT contends that the two statutes are substantially similar. Applying the appropriate analysis, we find that the difference in the language of the Maryland statute and Article IV(a)(2) is not the salient distinction. Rather, as with the appeals of the New York convictions, it is the effect of the language in defining the scope of the offense which determines whether or not the out-of-state statute is of a substantially similar nature to Article IV(a)(2). The Maryland statute fails to specify the degree to which a person must be under the influence of alcohol, and therefore permits a much lower threshold for culpability; in contrast, Article IV(a)(2) requires that the person be impaired to a degree that he or she is incapable of safely driving. PennDOT seeks guidance in Commonwealth v. Robertson, 555 Pa. 72, 722 A.2d 1047 (1999), wherein, pursuant to the Compact, we addressed whether Maryland's driving while intoxicated provision, § 21-902(a) was an equivalent offense to Pennsylvania's DUI statute, 75 Pa.C.S. § 3731, for the purpose of sentencing appellant as a repeat offender pursuant to 75 Pa.C.S. § 3731(e)(1)(iv). This court, being equally divided, issued an Order affirming the Commonwealth Court's determination that the two statutes were equivalent offenses for purposes of sentencing. The Order was accompanied by an Opinion in Support of Affirmance and an Opinion in Support of Reversal. PennDOT does not rely on the Opinion in Support of Affirmance, which found that the offense of driving while intoxicated, a different provision of the Maryland statute than the one at issue here, is akin to Pennsylvania's DUI statute. 722 A.2d at 1051 [9] Instead, PennDOT looks to the Opinion in Support of Reversal, which proposed that [s]ubstantial similarity is satisfied where the statutes of the different jurisdictions proscribe the same general conduct, notwithstanding the fact that the statutes require differing degrees of culpability before criminal liability attaches. Id. at 1052. PennDOT's reliance on this opinion is misplaced for two reasons. First, the opinion set forth a test for substantial similarity under a different statutory provision than those of the Compact. Second, even if we were to adopt such a definition of substantial similarity under the Compact, that test is not satisfied here. Clearly, the same general type of conduct is not proscribed, as the Maryland statute prohibits any amount of impairment, rather than impairment to a degree of being rendered incapable of safely driving. As with the appeals involving the New York DWAI statute, PennDOT relies on cases in which party states to the Compact have made favorable comparisons between their DUI offenses and other party states' DUI offenses. These decisions are no more persuasive when applied to the Maryland statute. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Commonwealth Court in all three cases. [10]