Court Opinion

ID: 9855818
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:31:35.724501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:11.478749
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent, believing the legislation in question, as interpreted, paves the way for an accused to be placed twice in jeopardy1 and represents class legislation.2 It hands a prosecutor a double-barreled shotgun, either barrel of which could be discharged, followed by the other in the discretion of the prosecutor. Permitting this has been held to violate the equal protection clauses of both state and federal constitutions.3
Should the lesser offense be pursued, the prosecutor need but allege negligence. Drunkenness could be ignored as an element of the offense. Should the felony charge be pursued, both drunkenness and negligence could be alleged,, but exactly the same facts could be proved. In the one case the accus*319ed faces a misdemeanor and a maximum one-year jail sentence. In the other, he faces a felony and a maximum of 10 years in state prison. Although the same facts could be proved, the main opinion rejects any idea that the lesser offense is included in the greater, concluding that any negligent, drunk-driving homicide must be prosecuted under the automobile homicide statute.4 How the fact of drunkenness could be determined before the complaint was filed in such case would have to be a matter of clairvoyance, since such fact would be one of those determinable by the jury, and to say that "the automobile homicide law is controlling on prosecutions under the facts therein prescribed” is somewhat misleading since such quoted statement seems to be predicated on the fact of drunkenness somehow being known before the prosecution.
Besides the double jeopardy aspect of this case it seems obvious to this writer that the legislation directly strikes at a class of mis-demeanants who may have taken a drink or a drug, and because of that latter fact alone, can become felons. The injustice of the statute could be illustrated by the fact that under its terms a person running a red light at 90 m. p. h., who had not had a drink, but who kills another, faces but a misdemeanor and a year in jail, while one who may not have thought of voluntary intoxication, at 10 m. p. h. may kill some one after leaving his doctor’s office and after having had administered to him a drug for some ailment or other which actually but unwittingly made it unsafe for him to drive, would face a felony and a maximum of 10 years,' — the statute not requiring any intentional or voluntary self-administration of drink or drug.
The main opinion’s answer to all this, it would seem, is represented by a purported analogy to the effect that the statute here is not unlike one that punishes A who shoots intending to kill B, but kills C. The comparison offends logic, in my opinion, and is no analogy at all. There might be analogy if a statute punished A if he shoots, intending to kill B, buts kills C, providing A zvas either drunk or drugged. Besides, and parenthetically, gunman A had a real criminal intent to kill, whereas an intoxicated driver seldom, if ever, intends to hurt any one save himself.
The decision in this case meets the class legislation problem by the simple explanation that “this court has held that all that is. required is that the statute apply equally to all members in the class and that as long as there is a valid reason for a classification by the legislature, their determination of the *320class will not be disturbed.” This statement begs the question.
First: Who are the members of the class here? They are a class of misdemeanants within a class of misdemeanants. They are the drunk misdemeanants. One wonders if the main opinion would conclude as it does if the legislature had classified those subject to the act as being male drinkers who were negligent and who could not safely drive.
Second: What is the so-called “valid reason for the classification ?” What about the man who drives through the red light at 90 m. p. h. ? Is he potentially any the less dangerous than the man driving home from the doctor’s office, — or even the self-administered drunken driver?
The decision disposes, by way of generality, of the important question as to the wide, disparate inconsistencies between the two statutes and their penalties by saying that “automobile homicide encompasses a new crime, one not previously a part of Utah law, and as such the facts that go to make this crime are excluded from the old crime wherein they previously fell.” It then says that it is as though the legislature had amended the previous act by adding the word “provided,” followed by the automobile homicide act as now written. The quoted statement is true only if enough of us say so, but there is no logical reason why it should be true and there is no authority in the main- opinion to support it. The legislature did not seem to think it was true else it would have said so, and furthermore and significantly it did not adopt the simple device of using the word “provided” and then amending the previous act. More than one reason for such deliberate abstention can be called to mind. Had the legislature used such device it would then seem inescapable that the lesser crime would have been included in the greater, an idea rejected by the main opinion.
It seems to me that under the conclusions and reasoning of the main opinion, these absurd results could evolve: If one is prosecuted under the felony statute which, says the opinion, “is controlling * * * under the facts therein prescribed,” a finding that the accused was not drunk or drugged, although negligent, would require an acquittal, but would not preclude another prosecution under the involuntary manslaughter act, since the decision elsewhere takes the position the latter is not an included offense. If one be prosecuted first under the involuntary manslaughter act and is found to be both negligent and drunk, it would seem that he should be acquitted, since the main opinion says “the automobile homicide law is controlling on prosecutions under the facts therein prescribed.” Thereafter it would seem that the accused might be prosecuted under the automobile homicide act if the court, as it seems to say, considers there is no double jeopardy problem.
*321In my opinion, the statute obviously strikes at but one type of misdemeanant. A drunk or drugged driver becomes a felon while all his fellow misdemeanants, — the speeders, the reckless ones, the willful and malicious ones, the hot-rodders, the daredevils, the wrong side of the roaders, the drivers with revoked licenses, the drivers who cannot obtain licenses because nature itself made them “incapable of safely driving a vehicle,” and many other types of “classes” showing incapacity to drive safely need fear no more than a misdemeanor and a year in jail, while their brethren with the baited breath get the book.

. Art. I, Sec. 12, Utah Constitution.

. Art. I, Sec. 24, Utah Constitution.

.State v. Cory, 1955, 204 Or. 235, 282 P. 2d 1054; State v. Pirkey, 1955, 203 Or. 697, 281 P.2d 698.

. Although we have held the identical facts which must be proved under the automobile homicide act constituted an offense under the voluntary manslaughter act. State v. Capps, 1947, 111 Utah 189, 176 P.2d 873; State v. McQuilkin, 1948, 113 Utah 268, 193 P.2d 433; State v. Read, 1952, 121 Utah 453, 243 P.2d 439.