Court Opinion

ID: 9758957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:57:28.885657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:02:41.107603
License: Public Domain

Peck, J.,
dissenting. Because of the failure of the prosecution to relate the numerical results of the blood alcohol content test back to the time of operation, I joined the Court in State v. Dumont, 146 Vt. 252, 499 A.2d 787 (1985), in reversing the conviction. Although I had some personal reservations that the time lapse between the stop and the test (one hour and ten minutes) was sufficient to be significant or prejudicial, I felt nevertheless that it might at least have been borderline. For that reason I was willing to give the defendant the benefit of the doubt. This case is different; not only does it extend the holding in Dumont on highly technical grounds, it ignores, indeed the opinion does not even note or discuss, any of the other evidence of intoxication presented by the State. These are faults I cannot accept; accordingly, I am compelled to dissent.
I simply cannot credit the postulate implicit in the majority opinion that defendant’s blood alcohol content (BAC) could change in any significant degree within the brief thirty minutes that elapsed between the stop and the test. Nevertheless, even if there might have been a change, if the BAC was declining during that period, then clearly it had been higher than .13 thirty minutes earlier; on the other hand, if the BAC had risen during the period, there was clear and convincing physical evidence that de*389fendant was legally intoxicated when he was stopped by the police. His vehicle was seen by an officer of the Newport Police Department speeding through the city at approximately 3:15 a.m. The officer followed the vehicle for approximately a mile and observed that in negotiating curves in the road the vehicle crossed over the center line. At that point the officer stopped the van, and found the driver and sole occupant was the defendant. The officer detected a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage in the van; later, at the police station, the officer who administered the breath test detected the odor of an alcoholic beverage on defendant’s breath.
The officer who stopped the van noted that defendant’s speech, and his gait when he walked to the cruiser, were both uncertain, and that his eyes were watery. His eyes were described as bloodshot by the second officer at the police station.
Individuals charged in Vermont with the commission of a criminal act are guaranteed certain rights and protections by the United States Constitution as well as the Constitution of this State. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court of the United States has cautioned its lower courts, that in applying those rights in criminal cases, they should guard against becoming “impregnable citadels of technicality.” United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499, 509 (1983). Commenting further, the Court applied its harmless error doctrine announced in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967), saying:
Since Chapman, the Court has consistently made clear that it is the duty of a reviewing court to consider the trial record as a whole and to ignore errors that are harmless, including most constitutional violations.
Hasting, supra, at 509.
This Court approved the harmless error doctrine and applied it as recently as State v. Nash, 144 Vt. 427, 434, 479 A.2d 757, 761 (1984). Nevertheless, the majority in this case have retreated from our adoption of the doctrine. Defendant was charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor in violation of 23 V.S.A. § 1201(a)(2). The physical evidence of that violation and the brief time period between the stop and the breath test were such that, whether defendant’s BAC might have been rising or declining during that period is meaningless under the facts of this case. The basis of the majority opinion is overly technical and, assuming the failure of the prose*390cution to “relate back” was error at all here, it was harmless error. I am unable to believe that the defendant was prejudiced.
I see today’s result as virtually mandating a per se reversal in every case where there is a failure to relate back, regardless of the brevity of the time between a motor vehicle stop and a subsequent breath or blood test, even if it is a matter of five minutes, and regardless of the strength of other evidence offered by the prosecution. Although I admit to being puzzled as to why the State did not “relate back,” which I should think would ordinarily be a matter of routine, I deplore the reasoning employed by the majority for the result reached here.
I would affirm.