Opinion ID: 1281892
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: construction of the vehicular homicide statute

Text: The appellant claims that the aggravated vehicular homicide statute under which he was convicted does not apply when the victim is a pedestrian. He supports this position with a two-part analysis. First, he argues that the statute under which he was charged, § 6-2-106(b), W.S. 1977, supra, is susceptible to only his interpretation and, therefore, cannot be subjected to rules of construction which apply only after a statute is found to be ambiguous. Second, he argues that even if the statute is ambiguous, the rules of statutory construction support his interpretation. We disagree with the appellant's first argument and find that the statute is susceptible to two interpretations. It states in relevant part: A person is guilty of aggravated homicide by vehicle    if, while driving a motor vehicle in violation of W.S. 31-5-233, he unlawfully causes the death of another person while driving a motor vehicle and the violation is the proximate cause of the death. [8] The statute could mean what appellant suggests, i.e., since the phrase while driving a motor vehicle appears right after the words another person, it describes what that other person, the victim, must have been doing at the time of his death. On the other hand, the phrase while driving a motor vehicle could refer to the defendant at both places in which it appears in the statute. The phrase first appears as part of a clause which links the defendant's act of driving with his drunken condition. It appears a second time at a place where it could be linking the defendant's act of driving with the time of the victim's death. [9] In other words, the phrase's second appearance could mean that the defendant must be driving a motor vehicle at the time of the accident which causes the victim's death. Because this statute is susceptible to more than one meaning, we consider it ambiguous and must resort to rules of statutory construction to ascertain the legislature's intent. [10] Attletweedt v. State, Wyo., 684 P.2d 812, 814 (1984). In their briefs, the parties have offered numerous rules of statutory construction as easy solutions to the problem of interpreting this statute. If we applied every rule offered, we would finish our analysis in a hopeless deadlock. In Longacre v. State, Wyo., 448 P.2d 832, 833 (1968), we noted that rules of statutory construction are usually only guidelines to aid courts in arriving at the legislative intent. The ultimate thing to be decided is what the legislature intended. We must approach the rules of construction from this viewpoint. We outlined several useful rules of construction in State ex rel. Motor Vehicle Division v. Holtz, Wyo., 674 P.2d 732, 736 (1983), when we said, the court must look to the mischief the statute was intended to cure, the historical setting surrounding its enactment [and] the public policy of the state    to ascertain a legislative intent that is reasonable and consistent. Application of the first rule, the mischief to be cured, favors the State's interpretation. Vehicular homicide statutes are generally intended to reduce the carnage on the highways by punishing those who kill through the reckless use of motor vehicles. State v. Sodergren, Wyo., 686 P.2d 521, 523 (1984). The Wyoming statutory scheme divides vehicular homicide into two types. The first type includes homicides caused by the criminal negligence of the driver. They are prohibited by subsection (a) of § 6-2-106 and provide for a $2,000 fine and/or a year in jail. They are not restricted to vehicular homicides in which other drivers are the victims. Second, are the aggravated vehicular homicides which are governed by subsection (b) of § 6-2-106. The legislature has determined that these homicides caused by drunk drivers constitute a mischief more deserving of heavier punishment than mere negligent homicides. The legislature has provided a penalty of up to twenty years in the state penitentiary to deter this conduct. If the aggravated vehicular homicide subsection punished only those drunk drivers who killed other drivers, it would be inconsistent with the legislative decision to punish drunk drivers more severely than mere negligent drivers. Moreover, the appellant has not offered a single reason why the legislature would distinguish between the types of victims killed by drunk drivers and those killed by negligent drivers. It would be absurd for the legislature to punish drunk drivers harshly when they kill other drivers and yet declare open season on such persons as passengers, pedestrians, and bystanders. We stated in State v. Sodergren, supra at 527, that statutes are not to be interpreted to produce absurd results. The second rule of construction from the Holtz case  the historical setting surrounding the statute's enactment  also supports the State's interpretation. In State v. Sodergren, supra at 529, Chief Justice Rooney called attention to the ambiguity created when the legislature included the phrase while driving a motor vehicle at two places in the statute. Without interpreting the statute, he urged the legislature to clean up the wording so that there would be an unquestioned expression of legislative intent. The legislature responded by deleting the phrase while driving a motor vehicle where it appeared after another person. Session Laws of Wyoming, 1984, Ch. 44, § 2. The legislature thus made it clear that it never intended to limit the statute's application to cases in which the victims were drivers. We have repeatedly held that subsequent legislative corrective action is a valuable tool of statutory construction. Department of Revenue and Taxation v. Irvine, Wyo., 589 P.2d 1295, 1300 (1979), and cases cited therein. That is particularly so and entitled to great weight when it follows immediately after controversies that have arisen as to true construction. Id. at 1300. In this case, Chief Justice Rooney raised an issue about the statute's meaning and the legislature responded quickly to address that issue. This statutory history provides significant support for the State's interpretation of the statute. The final useful rule of construction mentioned in Holtz is the public policy of the state. Surely it is not this state's public policy to punish a drunk driver who kills another driver more severely than a drunk driver who runs down an innocent pedestrian. We will not compound a temporary oversight in legislative drafting by interpreting the ambiguity in such an absurd fashion. The appellant offers several rules of construction to support his interpretation. He argues that if a penal statute admits of two reasonable and contradictory constructions, that which operates in favor of the party accused    is to be preferred. He assumes that his interpretation is a reasonable construction which will bring this rule into play. We disagree. In Keser v. State, Wyo., 706 P.2d 263, 266 (1985), we stated that `while generally speaking penal statutes are to be strictly construed, they need not be given overnarrow meaning in disregard of the obvious purpose of the legislative body   .' (quoting from State v. Stern, Wyo., 526 P.2d 344, 347 (1974)). The appellant's construction is unreasonable, and we will not accept it in disregard of the legislature's purpose. Appellant also argues that the State's interpretation would render the phrase while driving a motor vehicle superfluous because it appears twice. We have answered that contention when we explained that the phrase has different utilities at each location in the statute. It first links the defendant's act of driving to his drunkenness and later links the defendant's act of driving to the time of the accident. The appellant's rule of construction has no application here. In summary, we believe that the legislature intended the aggravated vehicular homicide statute to apply to a case like this in which a drunk driver kills a pedestrian. The status of the victim is irrelevant.