Court Opinion

ID: 9678370
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:18:13.151971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:03.966609
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
Because I am persuaded by the logic of those decisions holding that admission of the fact of a defendant’s refusal to submit to a chemical test for intoxication is not violative of the privilege against self-incrimination, I cannot agree that SDCL 32-23-10.1 is unconstitutional.
The seminal case for upholding the introduction of such evidence is People v. Ellis, 65 Cal.2d 529, 55 Cal.Rptr. 385, 421 P.2d 393 (1966). In holding that introduction of evidence of a defendant’s refusal to participate in a voice identification test did not constitute a violation of the defendant’s constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, Chief Justice Traynor wrote:
The privilege against self-incrimination applies to evidence of “communications or testimony” of the accused, but not to “real or physical” evidence derived from him.... The results of voice identification tests fall within the category of real or physical evidence.... In such a test, the speaker is asked, not to communicate *728ideas or knowledge of facts, but to engage in the physiological processes necessary to produce a series of articulated sounds, the verbal meanings of which are unimportant.. ..
Even though evidence obtained from a voice identification is not within the privilege against self-incrimination, the question remains whether evidence and comment on a refusal to take such a test is admissible. .. . [The rule prohibiting comment on a defendant’s refusal to testify] is not applicable when, as in this case, the defendant has no constitutional right to refuse to speak solely for purposes of voice identification.. . .
Nor was defendant’s refusal to “display his voice” itself a testimonial communication. It was circumstantial evidence of consciousness of guilt, and like similar evidence, such as escape from custody . . . false alibi ... flight . . . suppression of evidence .. . and failure to respond to accusatory statements when not in police custody ... its admission does not violate the privilege. ... A guilty party may prefer not to find himself in a situation where consciousness of guilt may be inferred from his conduct, but it can scarcely be contended that the police, who seek evidence from the test itself, will tend to coerce parties into refusing to take tests in order to produce this evidence....
Although conduct indicating consciousness of guilt is often described as an “admission by conduct,” such nomenclature should not obscure the fact that guilty conduct is not a testimonial statement of guilt. It is therefore not protected by the Fifth Amendment. By acting like a guilty person, a man does not testify to his guilt but merely exposes himself to the drawing of inferences from circumstantial evidence of his state of mind.
55 Cal.Rptr. 385, 386-87, 421 P.2d 393, 394-95, 397-98 (citations omitted, footnotes omitted).
In a companion case decided the same day, the California Supreme Court applied the reasoning in the Ellis case in holding that there was no constitutional bar to evidence of and comment on a defendant’s refusal to submit to a breathalyzer test for intoxication. People v. Sudduth, 65 Cal.2d 543, 55 Cal.Rptr. 393, 421 P.2d 401 (1967).
Other jurisdictions that have followed the reasoning in the Ellis and Sudduth cases include Alabama (Hill v. State, 366 So.2d 318 (Ala.1979)); Arizona (Campbell v. Superior Court, 106 Ariz. 542, 479 P.2d 685 (1971)); Nebraska (State v. Meints, 189 Neb. 264, 202 N.W.2d 202 (1972)); New York (People v. Thomas, 46 N.Y.2d 100, 412 N.Y.S.2d 845, 385 N.E.2d 584 (1978), appeal dismissed, 444 U.S. 891, 100 S.Ct. 197, 62 L.Ed.2d 127 (1979)); Ohio (City of Westerville v. Cunningham, 15 Ohio St.2d 121, 239 N.E.2d 40 (1968)); and Pennsylvania (Commonwealth v. Robinson, 229 Pa.Super. 131, 324 A.2d 441 (1974)). See also State v. Holt, 261 Iowa 1089, 156 N.W.2d 884 (1968). I would follow these decisions and hold that the trial court erred in ruling that SDCL 32-23-10.1 is unconstitutional.
As an alternative holding, I would follow the reasoning of the Supreme Court of Vermont as expressed in the case of State v. Brean, 136 Vt. 147, 385 A.2d 1085 (1978):
The right to refuse to submit to a blood or breath test in Vermont is a creature of statute, 23 V.S.A. § 1205, and not the Federal or State Constitutions. Since the Vermont Legislature has deemed fit to grant suspected intoxicated drivers more “protection” than is constitutionally required, the proper question is not, as defendant suggests, whether refusal evidence is testimonial or communicative in nature and thereby protected by the cloak of the Fifth Amendment, but rather whether the Legislature possesses the power to place a condition upon the grant of a statutory right. We think it eminently clear that it does. Since the right to refuse to submit to the test is a matter of legislative grace or privilege ... the Legislature may properly condition the exercise of that right by providing that any refusal may be introduced as evidence in a criminal proceeding.. ..
385 A.2d at 1088 (citation omitted).
In distinguishing earlier decisions that had held that evidence of refusal to take a *729blood test could not be used against a defendant in a criminal proceeding, the Vermont Court pointed out that the state legislature had amended the state’s implied consent statute to provide for the admission in evidence of a defendant’s refusal to submit to a chemical test for intoxication:
Under the present statute, however, the motorist’s refusal right is not absolute, but has been made expressly conditional — a change that is manifestly within the prerogative of the Legislature.
We hold that the admission of refusal evidence, as expressly authorized by 23 V.S.A. § 1205(a), does not violate defendant’s privilege against self-incrimination; accordingly, there was no deprivation of defendant’s due process rights.
385 A.2d at 1088.
The situation that faced the Supreme Court of Vermont parallels the situation in this state. As pointed out in the majority opinion, we held in State v. Oswald, 90 S.D. 342, 241 N.W.2d 566 (1976), that:
We have a South Dakota statute which grants an absolute right to an arrested person to refuse to submit to testing to determine the alcoholic content of his or her blood, albeit not without certain consequences. But the consequences of such refusal are provided by statute and they nowhere include the admissibility of evidence of such refusal in court on a DWI charge....
90 S.D. at 348, 241 N.W.2d at 570.
As we said in State v. Buckingham, 90 S.D. 198, 204, 240 N.W.2d 84, 87 (1976), “Implicit in our implied consent statute, however, is the right to refuse to submit to a test and, a fortiori, the requirement that a choice be made between submitting to the test or suffering the consequences of such refusal.” One of the consequences of such refusal is to make the fact of such refusal admissible in evidence at the subsequent trial.* To that extent, then, there is no “absolute right” under state law to refuse to submit to a chemical test, if by that term it is argued that no adverse consequences may flow from the exercise of such right. Indeed, in view of the fact that one of the consequences of the refusal to submit to a chemical test is the revocation of one’s driver’s license, it is a contradiction in terms to characterize the right of refusal as “absolute.” Accordingly, it is hardly realistic to say that a defendant’s refusal to submit to a chemical test may be the exercise of his statutory right to refuse the test rather than the manifestation of consciousness of guilt. While the former may in a rare case be true, the latter is the far more likely situation.
I would adhere to the views expressed in State v. Maher, 272 N.W.2d 797 (S.D.1978), and hold that the introduction of evidence of refusal to submit to a chemical test for intoxication does not violate a defendant’s rights under either the United States Constitution or the South Dakota Constitution. Accordingly, I would reverse the decision of the trial court and remand the case to circuit court for trial.

 As a counterpart of SDCL 32-23-10.1, the legislature, by 1980 S.D.Sess.Laws ch. 230, § 2 (SDCL 19-13-28.1), provided that:
Notwithstanding the provisions of § 19-13-28, when a person stands trial for driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, as provided under § 32-23-1, and that person has refused chemical analysis, as provided in § 32-23-10, such refusal is admissible into evidence. Such person may not claim privilege against self-incrimination with regard to admission of refusal to submit to chemical analysis.