Court Opinion

ID: 9684303
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:52:57.750889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:54.807512
License: Public Domain

SNELL, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The majority has crossed the demarcation line between statutory interpretation and fact finding. As such, the reasoning used sounds in the working place of a jury room instead of a judicial library. A practical result may have been reached, but, in law it must be supported by a statute that makes it law. Here, that support is missing.
We are dealing with a criminal statute, which we still say must be strictly construed. See State v. Ahitow, 544 N.W.2d 270, 273 (Iowa 1996). A crime is created by the actual words used by the legislature, not by what ought to have been said by the legislature or by substituted words of the same genre. Iowa R.App.P. 14(f)(13); see Henriksen v. Younglove Constr., 540 N.W.2d 254, 258-59 (Iowa 1995). Furthermore
[a] judge must not rewrite a statute, neither to enlarge nor contract it. Whatever temptations the statesmanship of policy-making might wisely suggest, construction must eschew interpolation and evisceration. He must not read in by way of creation.
Felix Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 417 Colum.L.Rev. 527, 533 (1947).
The crime of operating while under the influence of alcohol is established by the wording of Iowa Code section 321J.2(1):
1. A person commits the offense of operating while intoxicated if the person operates a motor vehicle in this state in either of the following conditions:
a. While under the influence of an alcoholic beverage or other drug or a combination of such substances.
b. While having an alcohol concentration as defined in section 321J.1 of .10 or more.
The significant words of the statute in this case are “operating” and “operates.” Both words are words of present action, not past action. The crime is committed by presently operating, not by having operated sometime in the past. This is why we have been careful to require, in our prior cases, evidence that the defendant was currently oper*207ating a motor vehicle while intoxicated. We have assiduously clung to our assigned task of deciding the meaning of “operates” and then applying it to the facts of the case. In State v. Weaver, 405 N.W.2d 852, 853 (Iowa 1987), we found “operating” by the defendant who was found parked in the middle of the road with the engine running. We also approved the uniform instructions defining “operates” and “operating,” as follows:
The term “operates,” as used in these instructions, means to have the immediate, actual physical control over the operating mechanisms of a motor vehicle that is in motion or has its engine running and may include minimal acts of control or activation of mechanical aspects of the vehicle.
A person is “operating” a motor vehicle, as that phrase is used in these instructions, when the person is in a position to have present or potential capability to activate or direct the movements of the vehicle regardless of whether the person is exercising that capability at the time of the alleged offense.
Weaver, 405 N.W.2d at 855. Both instructions carefully track the statutory language by requiring present action by the defendant and the motor vehicle.
In the early ease of State v. Overbay, 201 Iowa 758, 759, 206 N.W. 634 (1925), we upheld a conviction for operating while intoxicated where the defendant was operating the engine while a companion pushed the ear from behind. In State v. Webb, 202 Iowa 633, 637, 210 N.W. 751, 752 (1926), the defendant was operating when he was stopped by police after starting the engine but before proceeding down the road. The defendant in State v. Fox, 248 Iowa 1394, 1399-400, 85 N.W.2d 608, 611 (1957), was operating when the engine was running, he had one foot on the brake, and the transmission was in drive.
Conversely, we have held, as cited by the majority, in Munson v. Iowa Department of Transportation, 513 N.W.2d 722, 724-25 (Iowa 1994), that the defendant who was sleeping in a motionless vehicle with the engine not running was not operating a vehicle and as a matter of law could not be convicted of violating Iowa Code section 321J.2.
The legislature has chosen the language of section 321J.2 with good reason, in order to avoid an open ended criminalization of every incidence of past driving while intoxicated, no matter how many days, months, or years ago, with its due process implications.
The majority decides the Munson analysis does not end the inquiry and proceeds to convict defendant Boleyn on the ground he had operated the motor vehicle while intoxicated prior to the arrival of the police officers. Thus, a new statute has been created by substituting into section 321J.2 the words “had operated” for “operates.” The present tense of the statute has now become past tense. A new, broader and open ended crime has thus been created by seemingly innocuous language switching.
The majority attempts to justify this legislation on the basis of circumstantial evidence found at the scene. Circumstantial evidence, however, proves only those facts to which it points. Here, the circumstantial evidence is pertinent to prove Boleyn “had operated” a motor vehicle. None of the evidence, however, pertains to “operating” while intoxicated or the meaning of “operates” under section 321J.2.
The case of State v. Braun, 495 N.W.2d 735, 738-39 (Iowa 1993), held circumstantial evidence established that the police officer had reasonable grounds to believe the defendant was operating the vehicle while intoxicated such as to warrant invocation of the implied consent law. That law, Iowa Code section 321J.6(l)(d), differs from section 321 J.2, in that the statutory language is written in the past and past perfect tense. Under the implied consent statute, consent to the withdrawal of substances is given by a person who operates a motor vehicle under circumstances which give reasonable grounds to believe that the person has been operating a motor vehicle in violation of section 321J.2. The withdrawal of body substances occurs at the request of a peace officer having reasonable grounds to believe that the person was operating a motor vehicle in violation of section 321J.2. Evidence obtained under section 321J.6(l)(d) may be used for administrative purposes on the question of revocation of a driver’s license, regardless of its admissibil*208ity to prove a crime under section 321J.2. This permitted logical use of evidence legally gathered under section 321J.6(l)(d) does not siphon the language and legal effect of section 321J.6(l)(d) into section 321J.2.
What the majority has done amounts to creeping jurislation. I would reverse the convictions on the ground that the evidence fails to prove, as a matter of law, a violation of section 321 J.2 by defendant.