Court Opinion

ID: 9623031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:26:47.549295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:22.510713
License: Public Domain

Carrico, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent. I cannot agree with the conclusion of the majority that the provisions of Code, § 18.1-55.1, directed to the revocation of the driver’s license of a person refusing to take a blood test, are civil, not criminal, in nature.
If, as the statute provides, a “warrant” is issued “charging the person refusing to take the test” with “violation” of the Code section, *294the warrant is “executed in the same manner as criminal warrants,” and the defendant is found “guilty as charged in the warrant” of “a first offense” or of “a second or subsequent offense,” resulting in the imposition of “the penalty for refusal,” then surely a criminal, not civil, proceeding takes place. That, to me, appears so plainly upon the face of the statute as to permit no other conclusion.
I would hold, therefore, that the defendant was entitled to consult with his counsel before deciding whether to take the blood test. It would logically follow that the defendant’s failure to take the test in the absence of such consultation did not constitute an unreasonable refusal under the statute.
Gordon, J., joins in this dissent.