Court Opinion

ID: 9579944
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:00:11.281062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:54.789328
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Justice
(dissenting):
I dissent from the affirmance of the conviction for the reasons set forth in the opinion of Justice Durham. I write only to emphasize that this Court’s uncritical following of South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553, 103 S.Ct. 916, 74 L.Ed.2d 748 (1983), is exactly the sort of slavish, copycat construction of parallel state and federal constitutional provisions that serves to undermine the separate integrity of state constitutions and state courts. When faced with a question under our state constitution, consideration of federal decisions construing a similar federal constitutional provision is sound practice. However, if such decisions are to be followed, it must be because they persuade us of their correctness. Having read Neville, I consider it to be a result in search of a reason and quite unpersuasive in its conclusion that no compulsion was present.
*144I concede that, as the Supreme Court noted in Neville, drunk driving is a major social problem that must be vigorously combatted, and I further concede that the compulsion at issue here is rather subtle in form. However, those facts cannot justify upholding legislation that plainly compels a citizen to give testimonial evidence against him- or herself.