State v. Stueck, 96-081

• Decision Date: 09 December 1996
• Docket Number: No. 96-081,96-081
• Citation: 280 Mont. 38,929 P.2d 829
• Parties: STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Gregory S. STUECK, Defendant and Respondent.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

Page 829

929 P.2d 829

280 Mont. 38

STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Gregory S. STUECK, Defendant and Respondent.

No. 96-081.

Supreme Court of Montana.

Submitted on Briefs July 18, 1996.

Decided Dec. 9, 1996.

Joseph P. Mazurek, Attorney General, Barbara C. Harris, Asst. Attorney General, Helena, Mike Salvagni, Gallatin County Attorney, Jane Mersen, Deputy County Attorney, Bozeman, for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Karl P. Seel, Bozeman, for Defendant and Respondent.

GRAY, Justice.

The State of Montana (State) appeals from the order of the Eighteenth Judicial District Court, Gallatin County, suppressing blood alcohol evidence obtained from Gregory S. Stueck (Greg). We affirm.

The dispositive issue on appeal is whether the District Court erred in concluding that Montana's implied consent statute applies to a negligent vehicular assault prosecution so as to preclude the admissibility of blood sample evidence forcibly drawn after Greg refused to submit to a blood alcohol test.

Shortly before midnight on January 19, 1995, Montana Highway Patrol Officer Joseph Campbell (Campbell) was traveling east on Interstate 90 near Belgrade, Montana. He observed what appeared to be a large cloud of either smoke or steam developing approximately three-quarters of a mile ahead of him in the westbound lanes of traffic. As he approached the scene, Campbell saw a vehicle emerge from the cloud; the vehicle itself was trailing a huge cloud of steam and traveling west toward the Belgrade interchange. It appeared to Campbell that an accident had just occurred.

As Campbell approached the accident site, he saw a pickup truck in the median, a man staggering near the pickup and debris from the accident littering the median and the highway. The dazed man, Eric W. Troth (Troth), was the driver of the disabled pickup in the median; he had sustained a substantial bump on the back of his head. Campbell theorized that the vehicle he had seen emerge from the vaporous cloud was responsible for the accident. Observing a "fluid trail" heading west on the highway from the point of impact, Campbell put Troth in his patrol car and they began following the fluid trail toward the Belgrade interchange.

Campbell and Troth followed the fluid trail until it led them off the highway and down several local roads; it then tapered off to a point where Campbell was unable to detect its direction. With an injured man in his car and debris from the accident still littering the highway, Campbell decided that his best course of action was to return with Troth to the accident scene. He did so and immediately began clearing the highway and investigating the accident. After a wrecker arrived and lifted Troth's pickup, Campbell detected a powder blue paint transfer on Troth's dark-colored pickup which appeared to have been left by the vehicle responsible for the accident.

Officer Dennis DeLaittre (DeLaittre) responded to the accident scene five to ten minutes after Campbell and Troth's return. DeLaittre began following the fluid trail down and off the highway and, eventually, to Amsterdam Road. DeLaittre could see where the vehicle leaving the fluid trail had made a right turn off of Amsterdam Road onto Thorpe Road. The fluid trail became more infrequent, often was in the wrong lane and ultimately consisted of an accumulation of fluids deposited from the vehicle after it either hit a bump or braked for a corner. About that time, Campbell radioed DeLaittre that a baby blue paint transfer had been found on Troth's pickup.

DeLaittre continued down Thorpe Road. When the road surface changed to gravel, he followed a single set of tire tracks visible in the early morning frost to where a vehicle appeared to have skidded on the roadway, backed up and pulled into a driveway. DeLaittre observed a "baby blue Ford pickup truck with extensive front-end damage on the driver's side" in the driveway, and radioed Campbell that he had located the vehicle.

Campbell met DeLaittre at the driveway entrance to the residence on Thorpe Road where the baby blue Ford pickup was parked. Before approaching the house, the officers radioed the dispatch office for a registration check on the pickup. Dispatch called the registered owner, Don Stueck, who reported that his son Greg had been using the pickup; he also provided Greg's telephone number.

The sheriff's office telephoned Greg's home in the early morning hours of January 20, 1995, and reached Greg's wife, Kristy Stueck (Kristy). She was asked to go outside to talk to two officers who were parked in her yard. Kristy complied and Campbell and DeLaittre left their patrol cars and met her at the front door. After explaining to Kristy that an accident had occurred, the officers asked her if she had been driving or if Greg had been driving and if Greg had been drinking. When she answered that Greg had been driving the truck, they asked her to have Greg come to the door. Kristy responded that he was sleeping and she was unable to wake him. The officers returned to their patrol cars and, after Kristy's second attempt to awaken him, Greg came to the door. According to Campbell, Greg motioned the officers to the house and eventually called them inside.

Campbell could smell the strong odor of alcohol on Greg at the outset of the interview and observed that Greg started "fumbling and trying to pull his boots on which took quite a bit of effort and concentration...." Greg initially told Campbell and DeLaittre that his friend "Bill" had been driving the pickup that night, but that he did not know Bill's last name. Greg then left the house abruptly and walked outside to the truck to find his registration and proof of insurance; the officers followed. After further questioning, Greg admitted that he had been driving the truck and had fallen asleep at the wheel. When he felt the impact of the accident, Greg panicked and drove away from the scene.

Greg was arrested for three misdemeanor traffic violations, including negligent vehicular assault, and transported to Bozeman Deaconess Hospital. The officers did not advise Greg of the terms of the implied consent statute, but did request a blood sample to determine his blood alcohol content. When Greg refused to give a blood sample, it was taken from him forcibly.

The State charged Greg in Gallatin County Justice Court with negligent vehicular assault, failure to stop at the scene of an injury accident and failure to give immediate notice of an injury accident. Greg moved to suppress the evidence seized from his Ford pickup and his residence, as well as "[t]he blood sample forcibly withdrawn ... at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital," and to dismiss the charges. Following a hearing, the Justice Court suppressed the evidence resulting from the forced blood drawing, but denied Greg's motion to dismiss. The State appealed, and Greg cross-appealed, to the District Court.

The District Court granted Greg's motion to suppress the blood sample evidence and denied the rest of his motions. The State appeals from the District Court's suppression of the blood sample evidence.

Did the District Court err in concluding that Montana's implied consent law applies to a negligent vehicular assault prosecution so as to preclude the admissibility of blood sample evidence forcibly drawn after Greg refused to submit to a blood alcohol test?

In granting Greg's motion to suppress the blood sample evidence, the District Court rejected the State's contention that State v. Thompson (1984), 207 Mont. 433, 674 P.2d 1094, rendered § 61-8-402, MCA, inapplicable to any offense other than driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). The court distinguished Thompson, concluding that § 61-8-402, MCA, Montana's implied consent statute, applies to the charge of negligent vehicular assault and, as a result, that the blood sample evidence is inadmissible because it was taken in violation of the statute. Where a district court grants a motion to suppress based on legal conclusions, we review those conclusions to determine whether they are correct. State v. Williams (1995), 273 Mont. 459, 462, 904 P.2d 1019, 1021 (citation omitted).

We begin our analysis by focusing on § 61-8-402, MCA, Montana's implied consent statute. Section 61-8-402, MCA, provides, in pertinent part:

(1) A person who operates or is in actual physical control of a vehicle upon ways of this state open to the public is considered to have given consent, subject to the provisions of 61-8-401, to a test or tests of the person's blood, breath, or urine for the purpose of determining any measured amount or detected presence of alcohol or drugs in the person's body if arrested by a peace officer for driving or for being in actual physical control of a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or a combination of the two....

....

(3) If a driver under arrest refuses upon the request of a peace officer to submit to a test or tests designated by the arresting officer as provided in subsection (1), a test may not be given, but the officer shall, on behalf of the department, immediately seize the person's driver's license.... [Emphasis added.]

In interpreting a statute, we look first to the language used therein by the legislature. State v. Gould (1995), 273 Mont. 207, 219, 902 P.2d 532, 540. "Where the language is plain, unambiguous, direct, and certain, the statute speaks for itself...." Gould, 902 P.2d at 540 (citation omitted).

According to the plain and unambiguous language used, § 61-8-402(1), MCA, applies when the defendant has been arrested for committing the DUI offense set forth in § 61-8-401, MCA. In such an event, a defendant's refusal to submit to a blood alcohol test mandates that the test "may not be given." Section 61-8-402(3), MCA. Moreover, blood samples drawn in violation of the implied consent statute are inadmissible as evidence in prosecutions for DUI. Thompson, 674 P.2d at 1095 (citing State v. Mangels (1975), 166 Mont. 190, 531 P.2d...