Opinion ID: 1184396
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the question of repeal by implication

Text: Section 13 AAC 02.175(c) provides: A person may not be upon or along a highway under the influence of an intoxicating liquor, narcotic drug or dangerous drug, nor may a person drink intoxicating liquor while upon or along a highway. For purposes of 13 AAC 02.175(c), a highway is defined as: [T]he entire width between property lines of every way or place, of whatever nature when a part or all is open to the public as a matter of right for purpose of vehicular traffic. The term includes, but is not limited to, a dedicated or public subdivision street regardless of whether or not it is in the highway system and a roadside rest area, as provided by AS 41.20.050-060. [8] Peter contends that 13 AAC 02.175(c) is impliedly repealed by the Uniform Act, AS 47.37. The act establishes a comprehensive program for the treatment of alcoholism as a disease. [9] The specific section of AS 47.37 primarily relied on by Peter is the introductory declaration of policy wherein it is stated: It is the policy of the state that alcoholics and intoxicated persons should not be criminally prosecuted for their consumption of alcoholic beverages and that they should be afforded a continuum of treatment so they may lead normal lives as productive members of society. [10] The state begins its argument against a finding that 13 AAC 02.175(c) is impliedly repealed by referring the court to the general rule disfavoring repeals by implication. [11] Courts have established a presumption against an intent to repeal where express terms of repeal are not used. [12] Thus an earlier statute will not be impliedly repealed by a later statute where any reasonable interpretation will give effect to both. [13] However, it is clear that a statute can be repealed by implication. [14] There are two well-settled categories of repeals by implication: (1) where provisions in the two acts are in irreconcilable conflict, the later act to the extent of the conflict constitutes an implied repeal of the earlier one; and (2) if the later act covers the whole subject of the earlier one and is clearly intended as a substitute, it will operate similarly as a repeal of the earlier act. [15] There is a recent trend to limit or disregard the presumption against repeal by implication. In dealing with two laws relating to the withdrawal of land from the public domain by Indians for a settlement, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stated: As plaintiffs point out, this interpretation results in the implied repeal of the portion of section 4 of the General Allotment Act which required settlement as a precondition to application and allotment. However, the presumption against sub silentio repeal is a rule of interpretation based upon probable congressional intention, and, as such, has limited application here. Repeal of Indian legislation by implication is a common congressional practice. [16] While of course distinguishable from the instant case, the above decision does indicate a move away from strict adherence to a presumption against implied repeals. Such an approach is deemed more realistic in Sutherland's treatise, Statutes and Statutory Construction. The presumption against implied repeals is classically founded upon the doctrine that the legislature is presumed to envision the whole body of the law when it enacts new legislation, and, therefore, if a repeal of the prior law is intended, expressly to designate the offending provisions rather than to leave the repeal to arise by necessary implication from the later enactment. Still more basic, however, is the assumption that existing statutory and common law, as well as ancient law, is representative of popular will. As traditional and customary rules, the presumption is against their alteration or repeal. The presumption has been said to have special application to important public statutes of long standing. ...... But the underlying theory in modern government is that it is through the legislatures and Congress that the current public demands resulting from changing social, economic and political conditions are enabled to find expression. The presumption against implied repeal runs directly counter to the real probability, sufficient to support an assumption on which a presumption could justifiably be premised, that the purpose of new legislation is to change prior law, and in so doing to displace or repeal some of it. It is spurious and question begging to approach the decision of issues as to whether and how much a new law may have repealed provisions of earlier ones with a bias in the form of a presumption which contradicts probability. [17] We are persuaded that in endeavoring to ascertain the legislative intent, we should not commence with a presumption against implied repeal. We shall look to the purpose indicated by the legislature in passage of an act in our effort to determine whether the new enactment is intended to repeal a prior one. If enforcement of the prior statute is in irreconcilable conflict with such purpose, it will be held to have been impliedly repealed. In ascertaining the purpose of the legislature in enacting the Uniform Act passed in 1972, we note that the 1969 session of the Alaska Legislature presaged its enactment by passing House Concurrent Resolution No. 36 relating to the treatment of problem drinkers and alcoholics. It stated: WHEREAS the majority of arrests in Alaska are for offenses involving the abuse of the beverage alcohol; and WHEREAS the present revolving door policy of repeated arrest and incarceration has proven unsuccessful in the rehabilitation of problem drinkers and alcoholics; and WHEREAS each unrehabilitated problem drinker or alcoholic detrimentally affects the health and quality of life of at least four additional persons; and WHEREAS a person afflicted with a drinking problem or alcoholism can, through a comprehensive and coordinated program of treatment, be restored to health and a productive life; and WHEREAS the continuation of problem drinkers and alcoholics in an unrehabilitated status is a costly and unnecessary waste of our human resources; BE IT RESOLVED that the Governor is requested to direct all appropriate agencies and facilities of the state to initiate a comprehensive and coordinated program of treatment for problem drinkers and alcoholics to replace the present negative policy of punishment with a positive program of rehabilitation and restoration (emphasis added). The declaration of policy set forth in AS 47.37.010, quoted supra, appears to be in direct response to the 1969 resolution. While this section differs somewhat from the corresponding section of the Uniform Act [18] drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the difference is not so substantial as to render the comment to the corresponding section of the Uniform Act inapplicable here. The comment sets out, as the purpose of this section, the following: This section is intended to preclude the handling of drunkenness under any of a wide variety of petty criminal offense statutes, such as loitering, vagrancy, disturbing the peace, and so forth. As the crime commissions pointed out, drunkenness by itself does not constitute disorderly conduct. The normal manifestations of intoxication  staggering, lying down, sleeping on a park bench, lying unconscious in the gutter, begging, singing, etc.  will therefore be handled under the civil provisions of this Act and not under the criminal law. [19] In enacting AS 47.37, the legislature also may be presumed to have been aware of the January 1972 report by the State Office of Alcoholism entitled Alcoholism in Alaska and the Alcoholism Grant-in-Aid Program. [20] This report indicates that, while approximately only five percent of alcoholics fit the Skid Row description, these account for 40 percent of all arrests, and that most of this population is handled within the criminal justice system in a manner which most authorities agree has been both ineffective and inhumane. The report recommends treatment of public intoxication as a medical-social rather than a legal-criminal problem. [21] In discussing the benefits of the program, the report states: More than $100 million per year is currently spent in the arrest and incarceration of the public drunkenness offender, and a large amount is also spent in health and welfare services consumed by this population. While it would be expensive to rehabilitate this population, the expense would be less than the current costs. In addition, treatment in the health system has a substantial chance of success (at least one out of four), while treatment in the criminal system has proven to be largely unsuccessful. [22] The effectiveness of the program is said to depend upon the degree and effectiveness with which the judicial and law enforcement systems can collaborate with this program. [23] In that regard, the admission in oral argument that in some communities, arrests for violations of 13 AAC 02.175(c) are being utilized in lieu of the expressly repealed drunk in public statute, AS 11.45.032, is of some significance. Other than the general rule of law disfavoring repeals by implication, the state advances two theories under which it urges the court to find 13 AAC 02.175(c) not impliedly repealed. Evidence of legislative intent not to repeal 13 AAC 02.175(c) is said to be found in a comparison of AS 47.37.250 with the corresponding section as it appears in the Uniform Act. The corresponding section of the Uniform Act which is § 19 entitled Criminal Laws Limitations, states: (a) No county, municipality, or other political subdivision may adopt or enforce a local law, ordinance, resolution, or rule having the force of law that includes drinking, being a common drunkard, or being found in an intoxicated condition as one of the elements of the offense giving rise to a criminal or civil penalty or sanction. (b) No county, municipality, or other political subdivision may interpret or apply any law of general application to circumvent the provision of subsection (a). (c) Nothing in this Act affects any law, ordinance, resolution, or rule against drunken driving, driving under the influence of alcohol, or other similar offense involving the operation of a vehicle, aircraft, boat, machinery, or other equipment, or regarding the sale, purchase, dispensing, possessing, or use of alcoholic beverages at stated times and places or by a particular class of persons. The state finds the omission of sections (a) and (b) of the Uniform Act from the Alaska version of that act to be evidence of legislative intent to preserve a number of local laws and ordinances relating to drunkenness. [24] Defendant Peter agrees with this although he suggests that the local laws and ordinances intended to be preserved through this omission are those existing in Alaska's dry communities as well as rules pertaining to hours of operation of beverage dispensaries, and other matters unrelated to criminal sanctions for public drunkenness. [25] On this point, it seems Peter's interpretation is the more reasonable. Should the state's argument be accepted, there would seem to be no limit to the laws which might be passed to circumvent the purpose of the Uniform Act as adopted by Alaska. Citing from the text of AS 47.37, the state also argues that the legislature expressly allowed for the continued validity of regulations like 13 AAC 02.175(c). Specifically, the state refers to AS 47.37.250 which provides in part: (a) Nothing in this chapter affects a statute, ordinance, or regulation relating to (1) drunken driving, driving under the influence of alcohol, or other similar offenses involving alcohol and the operation of a vehicle, aircraft, boat, machinery, or other equipment, or (2) the sale, purchase, dispensation, possession, or use of alcoholic beverages at specified times and places or by a particular class of persons. As an alternative line of reasoning by which the continued validity of 13 AAC 02.175(c) may be upheld, the state argues that the portion of the statute making it nonapplicable to drunken driving and similar offenses or to the sale, purchase, dispensation, possession or use of alcoholic beverages at specified times and places or by a particular class of persons shows an intention to preserve the regulation which in part relates to use of an intoxicating liquor along a specified place (a highway) by a particular class of persons (pedestrians). This section, however, refers only to the sale, purchase, dispensation or use of alcoholic beverages, not to being intoxicated at specific times and places as the state is candid enough to admit in its brief filed herein. A construction as suggested by the state to expand the nonapplicability section to include anyone intoxicated on a highway would have the effect of emasculating the statute. Given the expansive definition of the word highway as it appears in 13 AAC 02.175(c) (the entire width between property lines), it is hard to imagine how a person could appear in public in an intoxicated condition without sooner or later violating 13 AAC 02.175(c). Since a highway as defined by 13 AAC 10.115 includes not only highways but public subdivision streets adjacent to which most homes are located, a person walking from his home in an intoxicated condition would almost immediately be in violation of 13 AAC 02.175(c). Similarly, establishments serving liquor are almost without exception located adjacent to a highway as defined by 13 AAC 10.115. Thus, once again, a person leaving such an establishment in an intoxicated condition would almost certainly be subject to arrest for violation of 13 AAC 02.175(c). In short, for all practical purposes, 13 AAC 02.175(c) is little more than a law prohibiting public drunkenness in the guise of a traffic regulation. This is not to make light of the state's justifiable interest in protecting the drunk from stumbling off the sidewalk into the path of an automobile and in protecting the driver from injury resulting from any attempt to avoid such an individual. However, it seems the legislature has previously found this interest to be subordinate to the desire to provide some treatment other than a jail cell for those addicted to alcohol, the ones most likely to violate any law prohibiting public drunkenness. As pointed out by defendant Peter, the legislature, concurrent with the enactment of the Uniform Act, provided for the repeal of AS 11.45.032, [26] Alaska's public drunkenness statute, which states in part: (a) A person who (1) is drunk in a private place, not his own property or his usual place of abode, or in a public place, to the annoyance of another, or (2) drinks intoxicating liquor on a public street or sidewalk, or on the premises of a public carrier or business establishment offering goods or services to the public, which is not licensed to dispense intoxicating liquor, upon conviction, is guilty of a misdemeanor, and is punishable by a fine of not more than $300, or by imprisonment for not more than 30 days, or by both. Initially, it is worthy of note that the emphasized portion of AS 11.45.032(a), now repealed, punished behavior identical to that which will continue to be punished under 13 AAC 02.175(c) if the latter regulation is found to remain in effect. [27] Moreover, by providing criminal sanctions for being drunk in a public place, AS 11.45.032 certainly prohibited being drunk on public streets and highways. In enacting AS 47.37 and repealing AS 11.45.032, the legislature no doubt considered the effect of eliminating the power to arrest the person found staggering down the street in an intoxicated condition, and evidenced an intent that treatment of alcoholism as a disease should be more important than punishing the symptoms. We hold that there is an irreconcilable conflict between an act, a principal purpose of which is to decriminalize public drunkenness, and a regulation making it a misdemeanor to appear upon or along a highway or street in an intoxicated condition. The Uniform Act is a response to changing attitudes towards those in our society who are unable to deal with alcohol responsibly. It incorporates into the law the realization that alcoholism is a disease, and that symptoms of this disease, i.e., public drunkenness, should not be made the subject of criminal sanctions. Rather, the legislature has decided that the proper reaction is to treat these manifestations of the disease of alcoholism through a comprehensive care program. To the extent that prior laws would defeat this purpose, they must fall. [28]