State v. DiStefano

• Decision Date: 20 December 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-119-C.A.,99-119-C.A.
• Citation: 764 A.2d 1156
• Parties: State v. Lisa A. DiStefano.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

764 A.2d 1156

State v. Lisa A. DiStefano.

No. 99-119-C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

December 20, 2000.

Present WEISBERGER, C.J., LEDERBERG, BOURCIER, FLANDERS, and GOLDBERG, JJ.

Lauren Sandler Zurier, Aaron L. Weisman, Providence, for plaintiff.

Randy Olen, Providence, John F. Cicilline, Bristol, for defendant.

OPINION

GOLDBERG, Justice.

This case came before the Court pursuant to three questions certified from the Superior Court in accordance with G.L. 1956 § 9-24-27. The Superior Court asks us to consider for the first time whether G.L. 1956 § 31-27-2(c) should be interpreted to preclude, for violations of § 31-27-2.2 (driving under the influence, death resulting), the admission at trial of the results of breath, blood or urine tests when the samples were seized without the defendant's consent, but pursuant to a search warrant issued by a justice of the Superior Court.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The essential facts of this case are undisputed. The defendant, Lisa A. DiStefano (defendant), was charged by information with one count of driving under the influence of liquor or drugs (DUI), death resulting, in violation of § 31-27-2.2, and various counts of possession of a controlled substance, as the result of a tragic accident on June 15, 1997. At about eight o'clock that night, defendant drove from the Shell Gas station onto Post Road in Warwick, and her motor vehicle collided with a motorcycle drivenby David Smith, who died as a result of the injuries he suffered in the accident. An on-scene investigation ensued; defendant was arrested for suspicion of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Subsequently, defendant was taken to the Warwick police station, where she submitted to a breath test, the results of which indicated a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .026. Sergeant Peter Johnson, a drug evaluation expert, performed a drug influence evaluation on defendant and concluded that she was under the influence of a central nervous system stimulant. Sergeant Johnson asked defendant to submit to a blood test to determine the presence or absence of controlled substances. The defendant refused. The Warwick police then obtained a search warrant from a justice of the Superior Court to extract samples of defendant's blood and urine. The blood test, taken from a sample obtained at Kent County Hospital, revealed the presence of marijuana and cocaine.

Before trial, defendant filed a motion to suppress the introduction of the test results on the ground that her blood was drawn without her consent, in violation of § 31-27-2(c), and therefore, the test results were inadmissible, even though the police had obtained a judicially authorized search warrant. The Superior Court stayed further proceedings and propounded the following questions of law to this Court:

1. "In view of State v. Timms, 505 A.2d 1132 (R.I.1986), should R.I. Gen. Laws § 31-27-2(c) be interpreted to preclude, in a case involving an alleged violation of R.I. Gen. Laws § 31-27-2.2 (driving under the influence, death resulting), the admission at trial of the results of breathalyzer, blood or urine tests at trial, when the breath, blood or urine samples were seized without defendant's consent and pursuant to a judicially authorized search warrant?"

2. "Does the statutory language of R.I. Gen. Laws § 31-27-2.1, the Breathalyzer Refusal Statute, preclude members of law enforcementfrom obtaining a judicially authorized search warrant to seize a defendant's blood for alcohol or drug testing?"

3. "If R.I. Gen. Laws § 31-27-2.1 does preclude law enforcement from obtaining a search warrant, is this an unconstitutional limitation on the judicial authority to issue search warrants as provided in Article 5 of the Rhode Island Constitution and R.I. Gen. Laws § 12-5-1?"

RHODE ISLAND'S DRUNK-DRIVING LAWS — BACKGROUND

Although drunk-driving statutes have existed for some time, the collective awareness of the people of the State of Rhode Island led to an overhaul of the state's drunk-driving laws in the early 1980s. In 1982, the offense of driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor (DUI) was upgraded to a misdemeanor, and the necessity of producing competent evidence of intoxication in addition to proof of a defendant's blood alcohol level was eliminated.¹ A year later, the DUI statute, § 31-27-2, was further amended by the addition of subsection (b), which provided that any person charged with DUI, "whose blood alcohol concentration is one-tenth of 1% or more by weight as shown by a chemical analysis of a blood, breath or urine sample shall be guilty" of DUI.² In 1983, all statutory presumptions against a finding of intoxication were deleted from § 31-27-2.1, in an amendment entitled "Revocation of license upon refusal to submit to chemical test."³ This amendment relieved the state of the necessity of producing expert testimony that demonstrated the effects of a given blood alcohol concentration on the accused. See State v. Lussier, 511 A.2d 958, 960 (R.I.1986). Further, the General Assembly enacted two additional felony offenses at that time, § 31-27-1.1, entitled "Driving so as to endanger, resulting in personal injury," and § 31-27-2.2, entitled "Driving under the influence of liquor or drugs, resulting in death."

RHODE ISLAND'S DRUNK-DRIVING LAWS — PRESENT DAY

In the case at bar, defendant was charged under the current version of § 31-27-2.2,⁴ driving under the influence of liquor or drugs, death resulting, a felony. Although this statute defines the crime of DUI, death resulting, and prescribes the punishment for that offense, it does not set forth the methods of proof to be used in determining whether the crime was committed. Rather, § 31-27-2(c)⁵ provides that evidence of the amount of intoxicating liquor or drugs, as shown by chemical analysis of the defendant's blood, breath, or urine, is inadmissible unless the defendant has consented to the test. However, this subsection specifically references § 31-27-2(a), misdemeanor DUI, and makes no reference to felonyDUI offenses. Therefore, the dispositive question for this Court is whether the Legislature intended to exclude nonconsensual test results in DUI felony cases by explicitly including the consent requirement for misdemeanor prosecutions and implicitly including the requirement in felony prosecutions. For the reasons that follow, the Chief Justice and I conclude that this Court's decisions in State v. Timms, 505 A.2d 1132 (R.I.1986), and State v. DiCicco, 707 A.2d 251 (R.I.1998), compel us to answer this question in the affirmative.

Our holding in Timms, in which we espoused the well-known canon of statutory construction in pari materia (statutes relating to the same subject matter should be construed together for consistency and to effectuate the policy of the law), would seem to indicate that consent would be necessary to make blood tests admissible, even in cases of DUI, death resulting. Timms, 505 A.2d at 1135. Although the issue before us in Timms involved a different public safety statute, namely § 31-27-1, entitled "Driving so as to endanger, resulting in death," our analysis of the two comparable statutes applies just as forcibly in this case. In Timms, we considered whether the actual consent requirement in § 31-27-2 would apply, or whether a written consent form, in accordance with the Confidentiality of Health Care Information Act, was required for hospital personnel to obtain defendant's blood. Timms, 505 A.2d at 1134-35. We stated:

"Although § 31-27-1 * * * does not explicitly require that the defendant consent to the taking of a blood test before that test may be introduced as evidence in a criminal prosecution, the Legislature must have intended it to include the consent safeguards explicitly provided in § 31-27-2. Both statutes concern the same subject matter, namely driving in a manner so as to threaten public safety. Furthermore, in addition to the already-enacted §§ 31-27-1 and 31-27-2, the Legislature subsequently created § 31-27-2.2, `Driving under the influence of liquor or drugs, resulting in death.' The consent safeguards in § 31-27-2.2 are also not explicitly in its text, yet the Legislature would not have enacted two separate driving-under-the-influencesections, intending that the consent safeguards apply only to one. `It follows that if a mechanical application of a statutory definition produces an absurd result or defeats legislative intent, this court will look beyond mere semantics and give effect to the purpose of the act.' * * * Thus ascertaining the intent of the Legislature, we are duty bound to give effect to that intent." Timms, 505 A.2d at 1135-36. (Emphasis added.)

Moreover, in DiCicco, a DUI death resulting case, we declared that, "[t]he wrong proscribed by § 31-27-2 is identical to that in § 31-27-2.2, namely, operating a motor vehicle while `under the influence of any intoxicating liquor, toluene, or any controlled substance as defined [by law],'" and accordingly, we held that, "the well-known canon of statutory construction in pari materia dictates that similar statutes should be interpreted similarly." DiCicco, 707 A.2d at 253-54. Further, in State v. St. Jean, 554 A.2d 206, 211 (R.I.1989), a case of DUI, death resulting, we unequivocally declared that consent was a condition precedent to admissibility.

This Court has stated in scores of cases that when a statute is clear and unambiguous, there is no room for statutory interpretation and the language of the statute must be given its plain and literal meaning. See, e.g., RIH Medical Foundation, Inc. v. Nolan, 723 A.2d 1123, 1126 (R.I.1999)

; State v. Peterson, 722 A.2d 259, 264 (R.I.1998); Accent Store Design, Inc. v. Marathon House, Inc., 674 A.2d 1223, 1226 (R.I.1996). One of the earlier cases that set forth this proposition in colorful language was Kastal v. Hickory House, Inc., 95 R.I. 366, 187 A.2d 262 (1963), in which the Court commented:

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