Court Opinion

ID: 9741202
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:51:33.316554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:22.877981
License: Public Domain

*557Fahrnbruch, J.,
concurring.
I agree with the majority that it is error for a trial court, over a defendant’s objection, to admit into evidence the results of a chemical blood, breath, or urine test to prove the concentration of alcohol in the defendant’s body if the defendant was read an inadequate advisory form before taking the test. The dissenters contend that the legislative intent behind Neb. Rev. Stat. § 60-6,197(10) (Reissue 1993), as it stood at the time relevant to this case, controlled the meaning of the statute. To support their contention, the dissenters cite legislative history, as well as the revised version of § 60-6,197(10) that followed this court’s decision in Smith v. State, 248 Neb. 360, 535 N.W.2d 694 (1995).
In reading a statute, a court must determine and give effect to the purpose and intent of the Legislature as ascertained from the entire language of the statute considered in its plain, ordinary, and popular sense. See, Village of Winside v. Jackson, 250 Neb. 851, 553 N.W.2d 476 (1996); County Cork v. Nebraska Liquor Control Comm., 250 Neb. 456, 550 N.W.2d 913 (1996); State v. Cox, 247 Neb. 729, 529 N.W.2d 795 (1995).
Section 60-6,197(10), as it stood at the time relevant to this case, provided, in relevant part:
Any person who is required to submit ... to a chemical blood, breath, or urine test or tests . . . shall be advised of (a) the consequences of refusing to submit to such test or tests and (b) the consequences if he or she submits to such test and the test discloses the presence of a concentration of alcohol in violation of subsection (1) of section 60-6,196.
(Emphasis supplied.) The dissenters contend that the above statutory language, when read in light of its legislative history, should be construed to mean something less than what it says. Specifically, the dissenters contend that “the only relevant consequences contemplated by § 60-6,197(10) are the penalties for refusing to submit to a chemical test and for failing a chemical test.” The language of § 60-6,197(10) does not support such a contention.
When the Legislature enacted § 60-6,197(10), it mandated that a driver-arrestee be advised of “the natural and direct legal *558consequences flowing from submitting to a chemical [blood, breath, or urine] test and failing it,” Smith, 248 Neb. at 365, 535 N.W.2d at 697-98, because the Legislature substantively required, by the words of the statute, that any person who is required to submit to a chemical test be advised of the consequences of submitting to such a test. Section 60-6,197(10) contains no language limiting the advisement of consequences in the manner suggested by the dissenters.
Under the law of this state, statutes covering substantive matters in effect at the time of the transaction govern, not later enacted statutes. See State v. Groff, 247 Neb. 586, 529 N.W.2d 50 (1995).
The dissenters seemingly have forgotten that beginning with the founding of this nation one of the basic reasons for courts to exist is to protect the individual from arbitrary acts of government. The right to be fully advised of the consequences of taking or refusing to take a chemical test for alcohol was granted by the Legislature in § 60-6,197(10). The dissenters ignore the plain language of the statute as it existed at the time of Christner’s arrest and would arbitrarily take away a right of Christner’s which was bestowed upon him by the Legislature.
Accordingly, I concur in the majority’s decision because at the time of Christner’s arrest Smith was the controlling law and § 60-6,197(10) had yet to be revised. The advisory form read to Christner was inadequate, and the trial court erred in receiving Christner’s blood test result into evidence.
White, C.J., joins in this concurrence.