Williams v. State

• Decision Date: 02 August 2002
• Docket Number: No. 37785.,37785.
• Citation: 118 Nev. 536,50 P.3d 1116
• Parties: Jessica WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.
• Court: Nevada Supreme Court

50 P.3d 1116

118 Nev. 536

Jessica WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

No. 37785.

Supreme Court of Nevada.

August 2, 2002.

Law Office of John G. Watkins, Las Vegas; Law Office of Ellen J. Bezian, Las Vegas, for Appellant.

Frankie Sue Del Papa, Attorney General, Carson City; Stewart L. Bell, District Attorney, and Bruce W. Nelson, Deputy District Attorney, Clark County, for Respondent.

Before the Court En Banc.

OPINION

By the Court, LEAVITT, J.:

In this appeal, appellant Jessica Williams raises several claims of error relating to her conviction and challenges the constitutionality of NRS 484.379(3) on various grounds.

FACTS

On March 19, 2000, while returning to Las Vegas from the Valley of Fire via Interstate 15, Williams drove her van off the road, into the median, and then struck and killed six teenagers. Testimony at trial revealed that Williams had stayed up all night on March 18, 2000. Williams admitted to using marijuana approximately two hours prior to the collision. Williams also admitted to using a designer drug, "ecstasy," on the evening prior to the collision. After the collision, Williams admitted to being the driver of the van. She also voluntarily turned over her marijuana pipe to police. Residue in the pipe was subsequently analyzed and found to be marijuana. Williams was also found to be in possession of a plastic bag containing a substance that subsequent tests confirmed was marijuana. Williams gave three blood samples for testing purposes, which were subsequently analyzed and found to contain in excess of the proscribed levels of the active ingredient in marijuana and its metabolite.

Williams claimed that she fell asleep at the wheel. Several witnesses testified at trial that they saw Williams' vehicle pass them and then drift to the right. The passenger in Williams' van testified that she awoke when the van drifted into the median, then looked over and saw Williams asleep.

Williams was charged, in part, with six counts of driving while intoxicated and/or driving with a prohibited substance in her bloodstream, six counts of reckless driving, six counts of involuntary manslaughter, one count of possession of a controlled substance, and one count of using a controlled substance. After extensive pretrial motions, including challenges to the constitutionality of the prohibited substance statute, to the form of the indictment, and to Williams' attempts to raise the issue of the county's purported negligence, Williams proceeded to trial. At the conclusion of a two-week trial, the jury was instructed that it could find Williams guilty of either the DUI, the reckless driving, or the involuntary manslaughter charges. As to the DUI charges, the verdict form contained two options for each count-one for driving under the influence and one for driving with a prohibited substance in the bloodstream. The jury was instructed that it could find Williams guilty under either or both DUI theories but that it could not find her guilty of "involuntary manslaughter and reckless [driving] and one or both of the [DUI's]." Williams was convicted by a jury of six counts of driving with a prohibited substance in the blood or urine, one count of use of a controlled substance, and one count of possession of a controlled substance. The jury returned not guilty verdicts on the six counts of driving while under the influence, six counts of involuntary manslaughter, six counts of reckless driving, and on the single count of being under the influence of a controlled substance. Williams' subsequent motion for a new trial was denied. The judgment of conviction was entered on April 5, 2001, and Williams timely filed this appeal.

DISCUSSION

Williams challenges the constitutionality of NRS 484.379(3) on various grounds. In addition, Williams claims that under the Double Jeopardy Clause, her acquittal of the charges pursuant to NRS 484.3795(1)(d) (driving under the influence of a controlled substance) precluded her conviction of the charges pursuant to NRS 484.3795(1)(f) (driving with a prohibited substance in the blood). Williams also claims: that the district court erred in prohibiting her from raising Clark County's purported negligence as the proximate cause of the deaths; that the failure to refrigerate her blood samples constituted destruction of evidence and violated her right to due process; and that the district court erred in refusing to conduct a suppression hearing on her motion to exclude the blood evidence until after the close of trial. We have considered these, and Williams' other claims of error, and conclude that they lack merit.

A. Constitutionality of NRS 484.379(3)

In 1999, the Nevada Legislature enacted NRS 484.379(3), which provides, in pertinent part, that "[i]t is unlawful for any person to drive or be in actual physical control of a vehicle on a highway ... with an amount of a prohibited substance in his blood ... that is equal to or greater than" two nanograms per milliliter of marijuana or five nanograms per milliliter of marijuana metabolite.¹ The Legislature also added subsection (f) to NRS 484.3795(1).² Under that section, a person is guilty of a felony if the person "[h]as a prohibited substance in his blood or urine in an amount that is equal to or greater than the amount set forth in subsection 3 of NRS 484.379" and the person neglects a duty imposed by law while driving that proximately causes the death of or substantial bodily harm to another person.

At a pretrial hearing to consider the constitutionality of the prohibited substance statute, Senator Jon Porter, who initially proposed the legislation, testified that the Legislature intended to create a per se statute similar to the alcohol per se statute. During this hearing, Senator Porter noted that there were twelve different hearings on the bill and that the wording changed during the course of these hearings. The original draft of the bill provided that driving or being in control of a vehicle with "a detectable amount of a controlled substance" constituted a DUI violation.³ The bill was subsequently amended to include a short list of controlled substances, which were deemed to be prohibited substances, and if found in a driver's system, would constitute a per se DUI violation.⁴ In response to concerns over the absence of a defined level of drugs required for a conviction, the bill was amended, where possible, to include the federal standards set by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration ("SAMHSA").⁵ SAMHSA is the agency responsible for setting standards for toxicology testing of airline pilots, train engineers, and others who must be tested for drugs under federal law.

Williams challenges the constitutionality of the resulting prohibited substance statute, NRS 484.379(3), on several bases, each of which will be separately addressed.

1. Equal protection

Williams first contends that NRS 484.379(3) violates the Equal Protection Clause because it impermissibly treats drivers with proscribed levels of drugs in their systems differently from others.⁶ In analyzing equal protection challenges, the appropriate level of judicial scrutiny must first be determined by considering the nature of the right being asserted.⁷ Statutes which involve fundamental rights (such as privacy) or which are based on suspect classifications (such as race) are subject to strict scrutiny.⁸ Statutes which do not infringe upon fundamental rights nor involve a suspect classification are reviewed using the lowest level of scrutiny-rational basis.⁹ Under the rational basis standard, legislation will be upheld so long as it is rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest.¹⁰

In a footnote in Williams' opening brief, she argues that this court should apply a strict scrutiny standard because the "right" to drive is a fundamental right. In the context of a license revocation proceeding, we have previously held that there is no constitutional right to drive; rather, driving is a privilege.¹¹ Other courts have similarly held that neither driving nor using illicit drugs constitute fundamental rights.¹² The appropriate level of scrutiny is thus the rational basis standard. During oral argument, Williams' counsel conceded that rational basis is the appropriate standard of review.

All statutes are presumed constitutional and the party attacking the statute has the burden of establishing that the statute is invalid.¹³ The United States Supreme Court has provided the following guidelines in determining the rational basis of a statute:

[A] legislature that creates these categories need not "actually articulate at any time the purpose or rationale supporting its classification." Instead, a classification "must be upheld against equal protection challenge if there is any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification."

A State, moreover, has no obligation to produce evidence to sustain the rationality of a statutory classification. "[A] legislative choice is not subject to courtroom factfinding and may be based on rational speculation unsupported by evidence or empirical data." ... Finally, courts are compelled ... to accept a legislature's generalizations even when there is an imperfect fit between means and ends. A classification does not fail rational-basis review because it "`is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality."' "The problems of government are practical ones and may justify... rough accommodations—[however] illogical... and unscientific [the accommodations may be]."¹⁴

The State contends that the prohibited substance statute is rationally related to the State's interest in highway safety and in deterring illicit drug use. We agree.

In passing the prohibited substance statute, the Legislature clearly articulated its intent to follow the lead of nine other states and create a per se drug violation¹⁵ simila...