Opinion ID: 891641
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Boone Was Intended to Allow Prosecution for Past DWI, but It Has Been Misinterpreted to Allow Prosecution for Future DWI

Text: {13} It is important to understand that the Boone Court's rationale went beyond merely seeking to reconcile the driver definition with an ambiguous DWI provision. Rather, the driving force behind this Court's holding in Boone was a disinclination to alter the common law rule prohibiting warrantless misdemeanor arrests when the misdemeanor does not occur in the presence of the arresting officer. 105 N.M. at 226, 731 P.2d at 369. {14} Boone presented the problem of an obviously intoxicated individual in a vehicle that was not moving at the time the arresting officer arrived at the scene. The defendant's car was stopped with its lights off and the engine running in the middle of the street. Id. at 224, 731 P.2d at 367. The investigating officer noted that the defendant, who was sitting in the driver's seat, smelled of alcohol, slurred his speech, walked unsteadily, and failed all but one of the field sobriety tests administered. State v. Boone, No. 8093, slip op. at 1-2 (N.M. Ct. App. Sept. 12, 1985). The trial court found that Section 66-8-102 requires that the vehicle be placed in motion, and therefore that the arresting officer had no probable cause to believe that the offense of driving while under the influence was being committed in his presence. Id. at 2. {15} The impediment for the trial court was the common law rule that a police officer cannot make a valid warrantless arrest for a misdemeanor driving while under the influence charge when the officer did not himself see the vehicle in motion. See id. at 1; see also State v. Luna, 93 N.M. 773, 777, 606 P.2d 183, 187 (1980) (A warrantless arrest of a person for violation of a misdemeanor is valid only if the offense occurred in the arresting officer's presence.). The Court of Appeals did not find a violation of the misdemeanor arrest rule because the circumstantial evidence in this case would permit a reasonable inference that defendant committed the misdemeanor offense of DWI `in the presence' of the arresting officer. State v. Boone, No. 8093, slip op. at 1. As the Court of Appeals reasoned, [i]t would defy common sense to require the officer to leave defendant's car parked in the traffic lane while the officer went to a magistrate for an arrest warrant, thereby endangering not only the lives of the traveling public, but also the occupants of defendant's car. Id. at 4. Therefore, the Court of Appeals held that when the officer's own observations, together with the reasonable inferences which may be legitimately drawn from the circumstantial evidence, give probable cause to believe, or reasonable grounds to suspect, that a person under the influence was driving the vehicle, a warrantless arrest may be made. Id. The Court of Appeals determined in Boone that the defendant's car, stopped in the middle of the roadway with its lights out and motor running and with the defendant in the driver's seat, coupled with defendant's slurred speech and the smell of alcohol ... justif[ied] a finding that the officer had reasonable cause to believe, or reasonable grounds to suspect, that the offense of DWI was being committed in his presence by the defendant. Id. To hold otherwise would mean the officer could not draw reasonable inferences from the plain facts, thus leading to absurd results. Id. at 4-5. {16} This Court, however, determined that the Court of Appeals erred by assuming that motion of a vehicle is required to violate the DWI statute and by expanding the meaning of the requirement that the offense be committed `in the presence of' the officer[, which was] unnecessary to the determination of this case[.] Boone, 105 N.M. at 226, 731 P.2d at 369. This Court held that motion of a vehicle is unnecessary because actual physical control is all that is needed to violate the statute. Id. Given this interpretation, the trial court had before it evidence upon which it could have found that the offense of DWI literally occurred in the arresting officer's presence[,] if the trial court could find on remand that the defendant was in actual physical control of the vehicle. Id. {17} Boone's purpose, therefore, was to create a judicial mechanism for prosecuting intoxicated drivers who had obviously been driving but no longer had the car in motion when in a police officer's presence. In other words, Boone used actual physical control to allow for a conviction of past DWI based on the continued control of the vehicle at the time of a police officer's arrival on the scene. However, the use of actual physical control by this Court in Boone has been interpreted to support the prosecution of an intoxicated person for DWI because he or she might drive in the future while still intoxicated. It is this latter interpretation that concerns us in this case. {18} The facts of this case implicate only the latter interpretation of actual physical control, which has been developed in subsequent decisions by this Court and the Court of Appeals, culminating in the expansive definition applied by the lower courts in this case. We now review those prior decisions to understand their holdings in light of Boone so that we can ensure our jurisprudence continues to adhere to legislative intent.