Court Opinion

ID: 9732029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:05:39.138325+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:22.650747
License: Public Domain

Peck, J.,
dissenting. There is no need to reprise the facts and circumstances preceding and surrounding defendant’s arrest for DUI. For purposes of this dissent, I am in full agreement with the statement of facts as outlined in the majority opinion. I disagree, however, with the conclusions of law drawn from those facts.
I will bypass comments relating to the legality of the roadblock at this point and return hereafter to that issue. For the *65moment, I will say only that I believe its legality or illegality is irrelevant.
This is not a case like State v. Emilo, 144 Vt. 477, 479 A.2d 169 (1984), in which an officer stopped a car without the slightest reason to suspect that any motor vehicle offense was being or had been committed. The officer himself testified that the only reason for the stop was a hunch, generated by no more than the fact that he came on the defendant’s vehicle late at night, traveling on a road sparsely traveled at that hour. Id. at 481, 479 A.2d at 171. There was no erratic driving, speeding, careless and negligent operation, refusal to stop when signaled, or any of the other more common idicia of a moving violation.
In the matter before us here, the facts, as described in the majority opinion, leave no possible doubt that the deputies had probable cause to pursue and stop the vehicle being driven by defendant; in fact, they were eyewitnesses to an offense in progress — actually being committed in their presence.
Regardless of the legality of the roadblock, the officers also witnessed defendant’s refusal to stop when signaled to do so by proper authorities, identifiable as such. Under ordinary circumstances, such a refusal is a separate offense, per se, in violation of 23 V.S.A. § 1012(a). Thus, defendant did more, as witnessed by two officers, than run a roadblock; he failed to stop when signaled to do so, which is a separate and distinct offense, having no necessary relationship to DUI checkpoints.
The majority refers to State v. Peters, 141 Vt. 341, 450 A.2d 332 (1982), but has conveniently overlooked its essential importance. The decision expressly abandons the preceding common law rule which recognized a right to resist an improper arrest, and now requires submittal to an arresting officer and a resort instead to the courts for relief. In Peters, the defendant assaulted a police officer who was attempting to place him under arrest; the former asserted the arrest was illegal because of a claimed defective bench warrant and, therefore, he was justified in seeking to escape arrest. This case involves an essentially similar claim. There is more than one way to resist arrest; one is to attack the officer(s) physically, as did the defendant in Peters, another is by flight, and still another, in certain circumstances, may be a necessity defense, see, e.g., State v. Squires, 147 Vt. 430, 519 A.2d 1154 (1986). Quoting with approval from *66Miller v. State, 462 P.2d 421, 427 (Alaska 1969), this Court stated:
We feel that the legality of a peaceful arrest should be determined by courts of law .... [0]ne believing himself unlawfully arrested should submit to the officer and thereafter seek his legal remedies in court.
Peters, 141 Vt. at 345, 450 A.2d at 334.
The underlying principle in In re Provencher, 127 Vt. 558, 562, 255 A.2d 180, 183 (1969), is stated to be:
[W]e are governed by rule of law [which] requires that we recognize its authority, and recognize likewise our duty to challenge its application by resort to proper judicial proceedings, not self-help.
Finally, in Peters, 141 Vt. at 346, 450 A.2d at 335, we quoted the following from State v. Koonce, 89 N.J. Super. 169, 183, 214 A.2d 428, 435-36 (1965) (emphasis added):
The right or wrong of an arrest is often a matter of close debate as to which even lawyers and judges may differ. In this era of constantly expanding legal protections of the rights of the accused in criminal proceedings, one deeming himself illegally arrested can reasonably be asked to submit peaceably to arrest by a police officer, and to take recourse in his legal remedies for regaining his liberty and defending the ensuing prosecution against him.
I note, too, that in Miller, 462 P.2d at 427, the Alaska court recognizes the good faith of an officer who mistakenly performs an arrest as a significant factor in resolving cases like the one now before us. I have not heard anyone suggest, regardless of the legality or illegality of the roadblock with which we are concerned here, that the officers at the site acted in less than the utmost good faith, and in reliance on a policy established by their lawful superiors. It is unfair and unreasonable to expect the officers at the checkpoint, particularly those still at the level of “infantry in the field,” to be in any position to recognize or make educated decisions on fine points “as to which even lawyers and judges may differ.”
The result reached by the majority is neither legally necessary nor inevitable. On the other hand, it weakens the strong *67impact of State v. Martin, 145 Vt. 562, 496 A.2d 442 (1985), and State v. Record, 150 Vt. 84, 548 A.2d 422 (1988), in combating the killing epidemic of drunk drivers which continues to ravage Vermont and the nation.
It seems that every time the Legislature tightens the laws against these criminals, this Court counters with decisions that impede and hamper legitimate law enforcement, threaten the constitutional rights of the people to life and safety, and open new avenues of escape based not on the merits, but on the questionable application of freshly invented legal technicalities, typified by such recent insults to justice as, inter alia, State v. Kirchoff, 156 Vt. 1, 587 A.2d 988 (1991), and State v. Brunell, 150 Vt. 388, 554 A.2d 242 (1988).
This matter should be affirmed in the interests of the safety and welfare of every citizen in this state, and those who may be visitors within its environs. We should be more concerned with protecting the people against the plague of criminality than with devising new ways of shielding wrongdoers from the consequences of their wilful or irresponsible conduct. I would affirm and demonstrate one way to accomplish that desirable and just goal.