Court Opinion

ID: 9579943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:00:11.276004+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:54.722336
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, Justice
(concurring and dissenting):
While I concur with some specific conclusions in the majority opinion, I disagree with other critical parts of its analysis, as explained below, and would reverse.
The majority correctly poses the issue as whether the admission into evidence of defendant’s refusal to take a breathalyzer test, when that refusal was communicated without benefit of a Miranda warning, violated defendant’s privilege not to give evidence against himself under article I, section 12 of the Utah Constitution. However, in view of the fact that this case is decided solely upon state constitutional grounds, I believe the Miranda rule is irrelevant. This Court has never considered or ruled on the question of whether Miranda warnings are required under the Utah Constitution.1 More importantly, I would hold that the choice imposed upon defendant here compelled him to provide evidence of a testimonial or communicative nature, with the explicit purpose of using that testimony or communication to obtain his conviction of a criminal offense. Therefore, I find unconstitutional that part of the statute which, by providing that evidence of the refusal shall be admissible in any criminal action against the accused, compels a waiver of the right to remain silent. U.C.A., 1953, § 41-6-44.10(8) (Supp.1986).
Article I, section 12 of the Utah Constitution says: “The accused shall not be compelled to give evidence against himself.” That language guarantees that a person accused of a crime may not be forced against his will to give evidence of a testimonial or communicative nature that will help the state convict him. We have previously held that, because providing a breath sample for a breathalyzer test is not evidence of a testimonial or communicative nature, there is no constitutional violation when the state imposes civil penalties for the refusal to give a sample. American Fork City v. Crosgrove, 701 P.2d 1069 (Utah 1985). We now deal with another aspect of the dilemma imposed by the state on the person suspected of drunk driving: whether evidence of a refusal may constitutionally be used against a defendant in a criminal proceeding.
Our statute presently gives a person suspected of driving under the influence two options: he may submit to a breathalyzer examination whose results may be used to incriminate him at trial, or he may refuse to take the test. If he refuses to take the test, he loses his driver’s license for one year, and his refusal may be used as evidence against him at trial. The first sanction is proper and constitutionally permissible; the second is not.
This scheme violates the right to remain silent guaranteed by the Utah Constitution because the statute makes it impossible to exercise the right to remain silent without incurring substantial detriment in criminal proceedings. A suspect is forced to either give the state incriminating physical evidence or waive a fundamental constitutional right. The majority, relying on the analysis in South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553, 103 S.Ct. 916, 74 L.Ed.2d 748 (1983), concludes that the statute does not force a suspect to refuse a breath test, and is thus not compulsory. That conclusion ignores the fact that the statute has the effect of coercing the waiver of the right to remain silent by posing submission to a breath test as the only alternative. There is no constitutional option for the suspect under these circumstances; literal silence is construed as a refusal. See Beck v. Cox, *142597 P.2d 1335, 1337 (Utah 1979). Therefore, a suspect must either take the test and provide the state with physical evidence it would not otherwise have, or waive his right under the Utah Constitution not to give evidence against himself. I am unable to see how such a choice does not impermissibly burden the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. The fact that the defendant has no constitutional right to refuse to take the test is irrelevant to the analysis. What he has is a right not to be forced to give that refusal to the state as “evidence against him.” Yet our statute penalizes reliance on the right to be silent by forcing defendant to give physical evidence against himself if he exercises it. In other words, the state compels a suspect to do one or the other: provide incriminating physical evidence or waive the constitutional protection against giving testimonial or communicative evidence.2
I believe the Montana Supreme Court applied the correct analysis in its first State v. Jackson opinion, 637 P.2d 1, 3-4 (Mont. 1981):
We analogize this to a situation where the State offers a defendant a polygraph examination, but the defendant refuses it. Surely, the State would like to argue to the jury that it had offered the defendant a polygraph examination, but that he refused. And just as surely, we doubt that any court would not find this to be an improper invasion into the defendant’s privilege against self-incrimination. In either situation, the inference left for the jury is that the defendant displayed consciousness of his guilt. Such evidence is inadmissible if it is compelled by the State.
In addition, a defendant may have valid reasons for refusing a breathalyzer test — reasons which do not reflect his consciousness of guilt. Yet, if the fact of his refusal is admitted into evidence, he will be compelled to either take the witness stand to explain his refusal or to take the chance that the jury will infer that he was in fact under the influence of alcohol. Several cases illustrate situations in which the defendant refused to submit to the test for reasons other than fear that the test would yield evidence of guilt: State ex rel. Baumert v. Municipal Court of Phoenix (1978), 119 Ariz. 142, 579 P.2d 1112 (failure to take test was due to defendant’s asthma); State v. Adams (W.Va.1978) [162 W.Va. 150], 247 S.E.2d 475 (defendant may fear the test itself or may distrust the procedure or the competency of the testers); State v. Paschal (1961), 253 N.C. 795, 117 S.E.2d 749 (defendant feared he would have to pay for the test); Engler v. State (Okl.Crim.1957), 316 P.2d 625 (bona fide doubts as to reliability of test); and Columbus v. Mullins (1954), 162 Ohio St. 419, 123 N.E.2d 422 (defendant desired presence of a doctor.) In each of these cases, it was held that admitting evi*143dence of defendant’s refusal to take the test violated his privilege against self-incrimination.
The likelihood of prejudice to a defendant increases if he had an innocent reason for refusing the test, but, for other reasons, exercises his privilege not to take the witness stand and testify why he did not submit to the test. On one hand, the defendant would be entitled to an instruction that the jury is not to make inferences against the defendant because of his failure to take the witness stand. See, Griffin v. California (1965), 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106, reh. denied (1965), 381 U.S. 957, 85 S.Ct. 1797, 14 L.Ed.2d 730. On the other hand, the jury would be instructed that it could consider all circumstantial evidence including the defendant’s failure to submit to the test, even though the defendant had the statutory right to refuse the test. The effect, however, of the statutory right to refuse the test is that it provides an unfair choice: the defendant may either voluntarily submit to the test or he may refuse, and, in the eyes of the jury, admit that he could not successfully pass the test. It is manifestly unfair to give an individual a right to refuse the test, and then to impose substantially the same penalty for refusing as that for submitting to the test.
The majority opinion fails to focus on this constitutional infirmity and simply adopts the analysis used by the United States Supreme Court in South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553, 103 S.Ct. 916, 74 L.Ed.2d 748 (1983), in which the same issue was decided under the fifth amendment to the federal constitution. That decision is not controlling for this Court when construing the import of our state constitutional provisions, and it should not be followed here.3 Therefore, I agree with the dissenting opinion of Justice Shea of the Montana Supreme Court, who criticized the majority opinion in State v. Jackson, 672 P.2d 255 (Mont.1983), for enshrining the principle that “the Montana constitutional provision against self-incrimination would march lock-step with interpretation given to the fifth amendment clause of the United States Constitution.” Id. at 263. He described the majority opinion as “dele-gatpng] to the United States Supreme Court our duty to interpret our constitution. This constitutes an abdication of our duty to interpret our own constitution.” Id. at 262.
Finally, there is a significant issue not treated by the majority opinion or by the parties in their briefs in this case: the question of whether and to what extent an exclusionary rule is applicable under article I, section 12 of the Utah Constitution. The majority opinion appears to assume without deciding that an exclusionary rule identical to the federal rule applies, but that is a question never treated so far as I know under the state constitution.

. The applicability of the Miranda rule was assumed without a holding in Salt Lake City v. Carner, 664 P.2d 1168 (Utah 1983) because the issue was not raised or briefed by the parties.

. I would also stress that this opinion in no way undermines efforts by the state to eliminate drunk driving. In his dissent in State v. Jackson, 672 P.2d 255 (Mont.1983), Judge Shea made the following well-reasoned comments:
Before launching into the body of my dissent, I detour here to comment on the current trends to crack down on drunk driving. Those trends are laudable and every effort to do so is a step in the right direction — provided that no constitutional rights are violated in the process. In South Dakota v. Neville (1983), [459] U.S. [553], 103 S.Ct. 916, 74 L.Ed.2d 748, the United States Supreme Court referred to the carnage of our highways as a result of drunk driving. No one can deny the tragic statistics relating to drinking and driving. However, the criminal law does not have to be enforced in such a manner as to cause a head-on confrontation with either the Fifth Amendment or Art. II, § 25 of our own constitution. Driving is a privilege, and that privilege can be revoked. I see nothing unconstitutional in a law providing that if a driver (on reasonable probable cause) is asked by a law officer to give a blood alcohol sample or a breath sample and refuses to do so, his license can be suspended. The refusal can be the triggering event for suspension. However, if the State chose, it could still proceed against the defendant on a charge of driving while intoxicated. In the criminal proceeding, however, the State should not be able to use the defendant's refusal against him as a tacit admission that his refusal was based on his belief that he could not pass the test.
Id. at 262.

. The majority opinion observes in footnote 15 that "the courts which have considered their state statutes have found no violation of the privilege against self-incrimination under ... the relevant state constitution.” In none of those cases, however, was any analysis attempted of state constitutional law; all of those courts simply adopted without scrutiny the reasoning of South Dakota v. Neville and applied it to state constitutional provisions.