Charnes v. Boom
| Decision Date | 19 December 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 87SC171,87SC171 |
| Citation | 766 P.2d 665 |
| Parties | Alan CHARNES, as Director of the Department of Revenue; and the Motor Vehicle Division, State of Colorado, Petitioners, v. Leila (Billy) BOOM, Respondent. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Duane Woodard, Atty. Gen., Charles B. Howe, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen., Richard H. Forman, Sol. Gen., Anthony S. Trumbly, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for petitioners.
Peter L. Mattisson, Westminster, for respondent.
In Boom v. Charnes, 739 P.2d 868 (Colo.App.1987), the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed a district court judgment reversing the Department of Revenue's decision to revoke petitioner Leila Boom's driver's license for her refusal to submit to a chemical analysis of her blood for the purpose of determining its alcohol content. The court of appeals concluded that the administrative revocation statute, section 42-2-122.1, 17 C.R.S. (1984), requires that a chemical test for alcohol must be requested within one hour of the alleged driving offense in order to provide a basis for revocation of a driver's license. Because the request in this case occurred after the one-hour period, the court of appeals held that the request could not form the basis for a driver's license revocation pursuant to section 42-2-122.1(1)(a)(II), 17 C.R.S. (1984). We granted certiorari to review this conclusion. We now hold that a request for a chemical test more than one hour after the alleged driving offense but within a reasonable time of that offense will support the revocation of a driver's license for refusal to submit to the test. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand the case to that court with directions to return it to the Department of Revenue for further proceedings.
At about 4:05 p.m. on January 25, 1985, Officer Les Perry of the Golden Police Department was dispatched to the scene of a one-car accident in Golden, Colorado. Upon arriving at the scene, Perry observed Leila Boom trapped underneath the dashboard of her car, unconscious but awakening. Perry could smell a strong odor of alcoholic beverage in the car and noticed that Boom's head was bleeding profusely. An ambulance arrived shortly and transported Boom to a hospital.
Perry arrived at the hospital at about 6:30 p.m. and asked Boom to submit to a chemical test of her blood. Boom at first refused to cooperate. At approximately 6:45 p.m., however, she agreed to submit to a blood test. When the nurse began to withdraw blood for the test, Boom became combative and the nurse was forced to terminate the test before it was completed. Boom was later transferred to another hospital for psychiatric care.
On February 19, 1984, Boom was issued a summons for driving under the influence of alcohol 1 and careless driving. 2 The Department of Revenue (Department) thereafter notified Boom that her license was revoked because she had refused to submit to chemical testing of her blood. The Department advised her, however, that she had a right to a hearing to determine whether there was a factual basis for revocation. See § 42-2-122.1(1)(b), 17 C.R.S. (1984). Boom requested such a hearing. On April 19, 1984, the Department conducted a hearing pursuant to section 42-2-122.1 to determine whether Boom had refused to submit to a chemical analysis of her blood. The hearing officer found by a preponderance of the evidence that Boom had refused to submit to a blood test, and he sustained the revocation of her driver's license.
Boom petitioned the district court for judicial review of the Department's order pursuant to section 42-2-122.1(9), 17 C.R.S. (1984). The district court reversed and remanded for a rehearing because the hearing officer had failed to determine whether Boom had been capable of rationally deciding whether to consent to or refuse a blood test, a fact that the district court determined to be critical to the outcome of the license revocation proceeding.
The Department appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals. The court of appeals agreed with the Department that only Boom's external manifestations of unwillingness to take the test, not her state of mind, were relevant to a determination of whether she had refused testing. Nevertheless, the court of appeals affirmed the district court judgment on another ground. The court of appeals concluded that Boom's license revocation could not be based on her refusal to submit to a chemical test that had been requested more than an hour after the alleged offense. In so holding, the court construed section 42-2-122.1(1)(a)(II), 17 C.R.S. (1984), as requiring that a test relied upon for revocation be requested within one hour after the commission of the alleged offense. We accepted certiorari to review this construction of section 42-2-122.1(1)(a)(II).
Section 42-2-122.1 contains extensive provisions governing administrative revocation of drivers' licenses based on alcohol-related driving offenses and is applicable to all persons who possess Colorado driver's licenses. Under the procedures included in that statute, the General Assembly has directed the Department to revoke the license of any person upon the Department's determination that the person:
(I) Drove a vehicle in this state when the amount of alcohol in such person's blood was 0.15 or more grams of alcohol per hundred milliliters of blood or 0.15 or more grams of alcohol per two hundred ten liters of breath at the time of the commission of the alleged offense or within one hour thereafter, as shown by chemical analysis of such person's blood or breath; or
(II) Refused to submit to a chemical analysis of his blood, breath, saliva, or urine as required by section 42-4-1202(3).
§ 42-2-122.1(1)(a), 17 C.R.S. (1984) (emphasis added). 3
In construing a statute, our task is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the legislature. E.g., People v. Vigil, 758 P.2d 670, 672 (Colo.1988); People v. Guenther, 740 P.2d 971, 975 (Colo.1987). To this end, we must read and consider the statutory scheme as a whole to give consistent, harmonious and sensible effect to all its parts. E.g., Martinez v. Continental Enterprises, 730 P.2d 308, 315 (Colo.1986); Allen v. Charnes, 674 P.2d 378, 381 (Colo.1984). If a statute is ambiguous, we may determine the intention of the General Assembly by considering the statute's legislative history, the state of the law prior to the legislative enactment, the problem addressed by the legislation, and the statutory remedy created to cure the problem. See § 2-4-203, 1B C.R.S. (1980); Schubert v. People, 698 P.2d 788, 793-94 (Colo.1985).
Applying these principles, we must reject the statutory construction adopted by the court of appeals under which the one-hour limitation contained in section 42-2-122.1(1)(a)(I) would also apply to section 42-2-122.1(1)(a)(II). This conclusion finds support in the language employed in section 42-2-122.1(1)(a), the legislative history underlying subsections I and II of section 42-2-122.1(1)(a), and the overall purpose of the statutory provisions enacted to combat alcohol-related driving offenses.
The court of appeals' construction of section 42-2-122.1(1)(a)(II) does not give adequate weight to the differences in the language used in subsection I and subsection II or to the different legislative origins of the two subsections in reaching the conclusion that the one-hour time period explicitly provided in subsection I is also applicable to subsection II, which prescribes no time period. It is true that a driver who consents to a chemical test is not subject to subsection I administrative revocation unless the test is performed within the specified one-hour period after the commission of the alleged offense. However, in the absence of an explicit temporal limitation in subsection II, it does not necessarily follow that the refusal to submit to a chemical test must occur within that same one-hour period in order to support a revocation. It is therefore necessary to look at the legislative history and the purposes underlying these subsections as guides to ascertain their meaning.
The legislative history of section 42-2-122.1 demonstrates that subsections I and II should be regarded as independent for the purpose of determining the time within which the test must be requested. The provision for per se revocation set forth in subsection I was first adopted in 1983 in an effort to provide a speedy and effective deterrent for drinking and driving and was aimed particularly at the heavy or habitual drinker. See Hearings on H.B. 1287 before the Senate State Affairs Committee, 54th General Assembly, 1st Session, April 27, 1983. Revocation based on refusal to submit to a chemical test under subsection II is an older concept dating back in Colorado law to 1967. See Ch. 356, sec. 2, § 13-5-30(3)(d), 1967 Colo.Sess.Laws 753, 754. Thus, the two subsections have completely different origins. Since the revocation provision of section 42-2-122.1(1)(a)(II) based on refusal to submit to a chemical test preceded the per se revocation provision of section 42-2-122.1(1)(a)(I), there is no reason to believe that the one-hour time limitation in subsection I is in any way relevant to the construction of subsection II.
A construction that regards subsections I and II as independent of each other for the purpose of determining the time within which the test must be requested accommodates the overall purposes of the Uniform Motor Vehicle Act, articles 1 to 4 of title 42, 17 C.R.S. (1984 & 1988 Supp.), of which these subsections are a part. In Colorado, drivers are deemed to have expressly consented to submit to a test evaluating the alcohol content of their blood or breath if arrested for driving under the influence of, or while impaired by, alcohol. § 42-4-1202(3), 17 C.R.S. (1984 & 1988 Supp.). However, the General Assembly has granted drivers the right to refuse to submit to a test and thereby avoid the physical compulsion...
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