Court Opinion

ID: 9558738
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:16:13.181373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:33.904881
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent for two reasons — an erroneous time computation under the applicable statute is accepted and an improper standard of review for an administrative agency is applied.
Appellant was first arrested on June 7, 1983. At the time of the arrest, the law regarding W.S. 31-5-233 was unsettled and all driving-while-under-the-influence cases in Sweetwater County, with the consent of the county attorney, were handled as one appeal to the district court. More than a year after the initial charge, appellant’s case was dismissed for lack of prosecution to then be refiled on the same day and set for trial for December 19, 1984. The State now seeks an advantage occasioned by the consolidated appeal and the prosecutor’s delay in prosecuting. Had appellant not appealed, he would not now have his license suspended for a year because his second conviction would have clearly come at a time more than five years later than any initiating date no matter how the statute may have been construed.
In first consideration, I would discern that affirming this decision potentially chills the defendant’s right to appeal. Simonds v. State, 799 P.2d 1210, 1218 (Wyo.1990), Macy, J. specially concurring; Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., — U.S. ——, 110 S.Ct. 2447, 110 L.Ed.2d 359 (1990); Wasman v. United States, 468 U.S. 559, 564, 104 S.Ct. 3217, 3221, 82 L.Ed.2d 424 (1984). Due process under the Wyoming Constitution should prevent the loss of life, liberty, or property that is merely occasioned by a defendant’s exercise of appellate rights or by a prosecutor’s delay, although the record in this case certainly does not reveal any ill motives for this delay. See Hoo v. United States, 484 U.S. 1035, 108 S.Ct. 742, 98 L.Ed.2d 777 (1988), White, J., dissenting, prosecutorial pre-in-dictment delay amounts to a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment; United States v. Lovasco, 431 U.S. 783, 97 S.Ct. 2044, 52 L.Ed.2d 752, reh’g denied 434 U.S. 881, 98 S.Ct. 242, 54 L.Ed.2d 164 (1977), due process clause has limited role to play in protecting against *276oppressive delay; and United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307, 92 S.Ct. 455, 30 L.Ed.2d 468 (1971), the due process clause may provide a basis for dismissing an indictment if the defense can show at trial that prosecutorial delay in bringing the accusation has prejudiced the right to a fair trial.
It is concluded that the State and this majority misconstrue the statute in determining passage of a defined period of time. My analysis would lead to a construction in accord with the terminology provided which is reliable, determinable and not subject to a capricious result from an applied construction. Furthermore, the permission now provided for the department to construe the statutory language in one of two or maybe more ways allows a potential for arbitrary action by the department which is unnecessary and improvident.
We start in application of the statute which, in its clear terms, defines the second event, which is the initial period for computation, to be either a) crime commission, or b) crime conviction.
(b) Upon receiving a record of a driver’s conviction under W.S. 31-5-233 or other law prohibiting driving while under the influence, the division shall suspend the license * * * for:
(i) Ninety (90) days for the first conviction;
(ii) One (1) year, if the person has been previously convicted once under W.S. 31-5-233 or other law prohibiting driving while under the influence within the five (5) year period 'preceding:
(A) The date of the offense upon which the conviction is based; or
(B) The date of the conviction at issue.
W.S. 31-7-128 (June 1989) (emphasis added). Recognizing that the five year period precedes the alternative later dates, this statutory system could be more adequately conceptualized if we were to substitute “tomorrow” for “A” and the “day after tomorrow” for “B”. Then rephrased, we would know that an event within the period five years from tomorrow or the day after tomorrow would justify and require the augmented penalty assessment.1
Having then started with the initiating date, we are required to determine whether the event necessary for penal offense enhancement has occurred within or after the period of five years.2 The decisional factor *277here, as it would be in any case, is what event must have occurred within that previous five years for penal offense enhancement — crime commission or crime conviction. We make the determination as a matter of law by statutory interpretation starting with the initiating date and then analyzing whether commission or conviction is the event which earlier occurred that did or did not precede the second offense trigger date by five years.
I do not find any administrative review standards involved and certainly not any questions of arbitrary or capricious action. The statute either is or is not misapplied as a matter of law and the action taken by the department is consequently valid or invalid. The review by this court is plenary. Nielsen v. State ex rel. Wyoming Workers’ Compensation Div., 806 P.2d 297 (Wyo.1991); Union Pacific R. Co. v. Wyoming State Bd. of Equalization, 802 P.2d 856 (Wyo.1990). For a plenary appellate review status without deference, see the discussion of Justice Blackmun in Salve Regina College v. Russell, — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 1217, 113 L.Ed.2d 190 (1991). Reading the statute as written, the defined event for the previous offense to be computed is the date of the offense and not some future time when the conviction occurs, as would be in this case, about one and half years later.
A careful examination of the text of the statute reveals that in W.S. 31 — 7—128(b)(ii) (June 1989) for the prior offense the word convicted in the second line defines status and does not establish a date. The provision does not provide a date of conviction, a noun, but rather a past tense verb, convicted, with the subject thereof being a statutory offense defined by W.S. 31-5-233. Consequently the offense “under W.S. 31-5-233” establishes the event which is driving-while-under-the-influence. The verb relates to the status of the event and does not define its date. This section would more simplistically be understood in accord with the terms used if the sentence was restructured to relate to an offense under the cited statute for which the defendant was convicted. Otherwise, to interpret the provision as this majority would do and as the department earlier attempted, we restructure to add a different subject; namely, date of conviction, as the terminology of the interpretation.
By reading the statutory text to find that the initial event was the offense “for which he was convicted” and not the date he was convicted, I would find that the department as a matter of law was in error and this majority continues the same error as amplified by application of the wrong standard of review and acceptance of that erroneous statutory interpretation.
I would reverse.

. The derivation of the statute has an interesting history, but provides no persuasive construction authority. In Wyo.Sess. Laws ch. 52 (1982), statutory provision W.S. 31-7-127 provided for a three month suspension for first conviction, one year for the second conviction and revocation for the third conviction with a right of restoration after five years following revocation. A further provision was upon a second or third conviction within any two year period, the registration of the vehicle being driven would be suspended for the period of the revocation. Wyo.Sess. Laws ch. 41 (1984), statutory provision W.S. 31-7-127 then provided "[fjor a subsequent conviction occurring within a five (5) year period from the date of a prior conviction * * * ” and then provided for three or more convictions “within a five (5) year period preceding the date of the most recent offense
The alternative language presently existent was then applied to both subparagraphs (A) and (B) of W.S. 31 —7— 127(a)(ii) by Wyo.Sess. Laws ch. 234 (1985). The Digest of House Journal of the Forty-Eighth State Legislature of Wyoming 391 (1985) reveals that the change was accomplished by the addition of the word "or” in the previous clause and the addition of the second clause, "(B) [t]he date of the conviction at issue” by a third reading amendment in the Senate as a floor amendment. Judging from the comprehensive number of changes included in the one amendment and the author who was the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it is likely that the impetus for the change was provided by the governmental agency or the attorney general’s office. As the amendment was added to the prior clause "[t]he date of the offense upon which the conviction is based", it cannot make any sense unless it was intended to anticipate the alternative of the later since the offense inevitably had to come first. The significant fact is that the referenced language to the first offense was not changed in the amendatory process. The additional clause was added four times: twice in W.S. 31-7-127 (mandatory revocation) and twice in W.S. 31-7-128 (mandatory suspension).

. Obviously, the defined alternative dates for computation triggered by the second offense does not make a whole lot of sense since we assume conviction cannot come before commission and we want an earlier date to have more opportunity to place the initial event within five years. I can, however, find within the poor draftsmanship of the statute some justification *277for the (A) and (B) clauses of W.S. 31-7-128(b)(ii) (June 1989). It would appear that the legislature wanted to make sure the defendant could not manipulate the period following second arrest by a trial continuance or post-conviction appeal which could extend the intervening time. Consequently, the department had their choice of conviction or commission for the computation starting point. Undoubtedly, in 99 times out of a 100, it would not make any difference which initial date might be used. In practical effect, I find the statutory system contemplates a computation parameter of offense to offense.