Opinion ID: 1918253
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: rhode island's drunk-driving laws present day

Text: In the case at bar, defendant was charged under the current version of § 31-27-2.2, [4] driving under the influence of liquor or drugs, death resulting, a felony. Although this statute defines the crime of DUI, death resulting, and prescribes the punishment for that offense, it does not set forth the methods of proof to be used in determining whether the crime was committed. Rather, § 31-27-2(c) [5] provides that evidence of the amount of intoxicating liquor or drugs, as shown by chemical analysis of the defendant's blood, breath, or urine, is inadmissible unless the defendant has consented to the test. However, this subsection specifically references § 31-27-2(a), misdemeanor DUI, and makes no reference to felonyDUI offenses. Therefore, the dispositive question for this Court is whether the Legislature intended to exclude nonconsensual test results in DUI felony cases by explicitly including the consent requirement for misdemeanor prosecutions and implicitly including the requirement in felony prosecutions. For the reasons that follow, the Chief Justice and I conclude that this Court's decisions in State v. Timms, 505 A.2d 1132 (R.I.1986), and State v. DiCicco, 707 A.2d 251 (R.I.1998), compel us to answer this question in the affirmative. Our holding in Timms, in which we espoused the well-known canon of statutory construction in pari materia (statutes relating to the same subject matter should be construed together for consistency and to effectuate the policy of the law), would seem to indicate that consent would be necessary to make blood tests admissible, even in cases of DUI, death resulting. Timms, 505 A.2d at 1135. Although the issue before us in Timms involved a different public safety statute, namely § 31-27-1, entitled Driving so as to endanger, resulting in death, our analysis of the two comparable statutes applies just as forcibly in this case. In Timms, we considered whether the actual consent requirement in § 31-27-2 would apply, or whether a written consent form, in accordance with the Confidentiality of Health Care Information Act, was required for hospital personnel to obtain defendant's blood. Timms, 505 A.2d at 1134-35. We stated: Although § 31-27-1    does not explicitly require that the defendant consent to the taking of a blood test before that test may be introduced as evidence in a criminal prosecution, the Legislature must have intended it to include the consent safeguards explicitly provided in § 31-27-2. Both statutes concern the same subject matter, namely driving in a manner so as to threaten public safety. Furthermore, in addition to the already-enacted §§ 31-27-1 and 31-27-2, the Legislature subsequently created § 31-27-2.2, `Driving under the influence of liquor or drugs, resulting in death.' The consent safeguards in § 31-27-2.2 are also not explicitly in its text, yet the Legislature would not have enacted two separate driving-under-the-influencesections, intending that the consent safeguards apply only to one. `It follows that if a mechanical application of a statutory definition produces an absurd result or defeats legislative intent, this court will look beyond mere semantics and give effect to the purpose of the act.'    Thus ascertaining the intent of the Legislature, we are duty bound to give effect to that intent. Timms, 505 A.2d at 1135-36. (Emphasis added.) Moreover, in DiCicco, a DUI death resulting case, we declared that, [t]he wrong proscribed by § 31-27-2 is identical to that in § 31-27-2.2, namely, operating a motor vehicle while `under the influence of any intoxicating liquor, toluene, or any controlled substance as defined [by law],' and accordingly, we held that, the well-known canon of statutory construction in pari materia dictates that similar statutes should be interpreted similarly. DiCicco, 707 A.2d at 253-54. Further, in State v. St. Jean, 554 A.2d 206, 211 (R.I.1989), a case of DUI, death resulting, we unequivocally declared that consent was a condition precedent to admissibility. This Court has stated in scores of cases that when a statute is clear and unambiguous, there is no room for statutory interpretation and the language of the statute must be given its plain and literal meaning. See, e.g., RIH Medical Foundation, Inc. v. Nolan, 723 A.2d 1123, 1126 (R.I.1999); State v. Peterson, 722 A.2d 259, 264 (R.I.1998); Accent Store Design, Inc. v. Marathon House, Inc., 674 A.2d 1223, 1226 (R.I.1996). One of the earlier cases that set forth this proposition in colorful language was Kastal v. Hickory House, Inc., 95 R.I. 366, 187 A.2d 262 (1963), in which the Court commented: Only when the legislature sounds an uncertain trumpet may the court move in to clarify the call. But when the call is clear and certain as it is here we may not consider whether the statute as written comports with our ideas of justice, expediency or sound public policy. In such circumstances that is not the court's business. Id. at 369, 187 A.2d at 264-65 (citing Blais v. Franklin, 31 R.I. 95, 77 A. 172 (1910)). Moreover, we are cognizant that in the fourteen years since our decision in Timms, the General Assembly has amended § 31-27-2 on nineteen occasions [6] and amended § 31-27-2.1 four times, [7] but has never revisited the issue of consent as a precondition to admissibility. It is interesting to note that in the same year it enacted § 31-27-2.2, the General Assembly also enacted a new subsection, § 31-27-2.3, entitled Revocation of license upon refusal to submit to preliminary breath test. This section, which is positioned beside § 31-27-2.2, provides that when a law enforcement officer has reason to believe that a person is driving or has actual physical control of any motor vehicle in this state while under the influence of alcohol, the officer may require such person to submit to a preliminary breath analysis. If the results of the preliminary breath analysis are positive, then the officer may arrest the driver and proceed to take further tests pursuant to § 31-27-2.1. These further tests are subject to the safeguards recognized in Timms, as required by § 31-27-2. This statute further provides that if a person refuses to submit to this preliminary breath test, such person would be guilty of an infraction and subjected to the penalty specified in G.L. 1956 § 31-41-4, which provides for suspension of a driver's license and fines to be imposed in the Traffic Tribunal. [8] One of the statutory aids to construction is a maxim entitled noscitur a sociis, the literal translation of which is [i]t is known from its associates. Black's Law Dictionary 1060 (6th ed.1990).The definition goes on to state that, [u]nder the doctrine of ` noscitur a sociis, ' the meaning of questionable or doubtful words or phrases in a statute may be ascertained by reference to the meaning of other words or phrases associated with it. Id. (Emphasis added.) Thus, an application of this doctrine might cause one to construe the juxtaposition of §§ 31-27-2.2 and 31-27-2.3 as statutes that are interacting. Certainly, the Timms court determined that the consent safeguards provided in § 31-27-2 were applicable to the felony charge set forth in § 31-27-1, driving so as to endanger, death resulting. It cannot be said that such a construction is unreasonable, or that it amounts to judicial amendment of clear and unambiguous legislative pronouncements. With this background in mind, we shall now respond to the certified questions.