Court Opinion

ID: 9791825
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:18:32.665848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:38.772450
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
LEWIS, J.
In providing that the accumulation of 12 points leads to a license suspension, and in assigning to “heedless and careless driving” a minimum of three points and to “inattention to driving, negligent driving” a minimum of one point, how did the legislature intend these traffic laws to be administered? That is the question presented by the petition for rehearing. Is petitioner correct in his contention that this “indicates a legislative intent to make the offense of careless driving an offense which requires more than mere negligence as the standard of conduct as compared to inattention to driving which denotes the requirement of mere negligence.”
Pursuant to our Rule 5(b) I requested a reply to the pertinent portion of the petition for rehearing. Appellee’s memorandum contended that the 1961 statute “is not a proper matter for consideration by this Court in interpreting the standard of care required under § 311-1, Revised Laws of Hawaii, 1955,” because there is nothing to show that at the time of enactment of section 311-1 the legislature intended to establish a higher degree of care than that required by the ordinances referred to in *348the statute, particularly as the legislature did not enact these ordinances. This argument misses the point of petitioner’s argument.
The offense in question was committed October 25, 1961, after the taking effect of the 1961 statute. “Penal statutes are within the operation of the general rule that statutes in pari materia should be construed together.” 50 Am. Jur., Statutes, § 420; see also R.L.H. 1955, § 1-21; Territory v. Akase, 43 Haw. 84. Moreover, a later civil statute may affect an earlier criminal statute, as in State v. Buck, 200 Ore. 87, 262 P.2d 495, holding that where the legislature, subsequent to the enactment of the Criminal Abortion Act, enacted a Medical Practice Act declaring the procuring of a criminal abortion to be a ground of license revocation, and thereafter amended the same so as to apply to the procuring of an abortion “unless such is done for the relief of a woman whose health appears in peril,” an indictment against a licensed physician was defective though framed in the terms of the Criminal Abortion Act under which the act was unlawful “unless the same shall be necessary to preserve the life of such mother.”
It may well be that the evidence in this case shows more than mere negligence. I am inclined to that view. But as the court has not so held and has based the affirmance on the “legislative intent to make ordinary negligence the standard of conduct” I would grant a rehearing in order to hear argument on the legislative intent expressed in the 1961 statute. Cf., Moore v. Pleasant Hasler Constr. Co., 51 Ariz. 40, 76 P.2d 225.