Court Opinion

ID: 9794858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:12:58.419691+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:21:38.040940
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Day
dissenting:
I-wish to dissent to the procedural emasculation involved herein by the opinion announced this date. It can do nothing but add utter confusion not only to future cases but in attempting to reconcile pronouncements of this court heretofore made on a similar statute.
I fear that my brethren have misconceived the statute here involved, C.R.S. 1963, 13-5-30(5). They have demonstrated this by comparing it to the habitual criminal statute. There is basis for comparison between the statutes, but the effect of the one under consideration here is not the same as the habitual criminal act. The habitual criminal act is a statute separate unto- itself and not connected with or a part of any particular substantive offense. It is procedural and in aid of punishment, but it is in that respect only that it is similar to the statute under consideration here.
The statute in the case under consideration concerns one offense, namely, driving under the influence of liquor. That was the only offense charged in this information, *302and the only offense for which defendant could be convicted. I believe the situation is succinctly described by this court in Righi v. People, 145 Colo. 457, 359 P.2d 656, interpreting a statute almost identical to the one under consideration (with a few later embellishments). We, in the Righi case said of the statute: “* * * [It] does not create two separate offenses but rather is intended to regulate the punishment to be imposed in a single aggravated offense described in two counts.” (Emphasis added.) In the same case, in a more expansive description of the statute, we said that there could be only one sentence and not separate sentences on the two counts. We further commented that the statute was meant only to increase the sentence imposed for the substantive crime charged in one count, and that the additional count is only an aggravated circumstance relating to the previous one.
We said much the same thing in Nickle v. Reeder, 144 Colo. 593, 357 P.2d 921 as follows: “The second count is not in itself an offense, but determines the punishment which may be inflicted upon conviction of a second offense within five years. The only purpose of the second count was to present the former conviction, and in context merely separated the inquiry into its two essential parts and did so briefly and clearly.” (Emphasis added.) Thus, if there is only a single offense, i.e., the driving under the influence on the date and time alleged in the information, with the second count merely describing to the jury that it is the second time the defendant has so driven, there can be, in my opinion, only one trial.
This is not to say that the District Attorney could not have dismissed the second count after the mistrial, if he so desired, and in that connection then it would have been error for the Judge to vacate the verdict of guilty on the first count. But it is the District Attorney who has made the election and who persists in formulating the charge of “second offense driving under the influence.” If he wants it that way he should procedurally be *303required to present the ease as one and inseparable. I cannot conceive two trials to two juries under this one offense.