The South Dakota Supreme Court stepped on the gas this month, issuing 15 of its 97 rulings for 2014. Among five released last Tuesday was State v. Mundy-Giedd, in which our justices unanimously rejected a drunk driver's attempt to nullify South Dakota's DUI laws. Rather than just regurgitate Attorney General Marty Jackley's press release on the ruling, let's study the actual ruling, which provides a useful lesson in reading ambiguous statutes in the context of legislative intent.
Nicole Mundy-Giedd got busted for DUI in 2013. Her lawyer, Timothy R. Whalen of Lake Andes, tried the same defense he ventured with a few other clients: he argued that an innocuous little bill passed in 2012, HB 1027, actually repealed our DUI laws. Whalen contended on his clients' behalf that 2012 HB 1027 got rid of a statute that excepted drunken-driving laws from another statute prohibiting laws punishing "drinking, drunkenness, or being in an intoxicated condition." The 2014 Legislature caught up and repealed that latter provision with 2014 HB 1017 (thus opening the door for the return of Prohibition?), but from July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2014, Whalen claims the Legislature opened for Mundy-Giedd and other South Dakotans a window of opportunity to drink and drive.
Absurdity flows abundantly from our Legislature, but not that much absurdity, say our Supremes.
To ward off absurdity, the Court rejected Mundy-Giedd's effort to limit interpretation of statute to the text on the page and instead accessed common sense through a broader reading of legislative history and intent. The Court accepted the state's argument that nothing in the titles or histories of the 1974 and 2012 laws in question showed any intent by the Legislature to legalize drunk driving. The Court then looked at other legislation to determine that the Legislature maintained its intention to bust DUI:
Other contemporaneous legislation confirms our conclusion. Indeed, although the 2012 Legislature repealed SDCL 34-20A-95, it simultaneously revised a criminal penalty statute (SDCL 22-6-5.2) to expressly authorize enhanced penalties for violating SDCL 32-23-1. 2012 S.D. Sess. Laws ch. 119. The 2012 Legislature also amended rather than repealed SDCL 42-8-45, an analogous statute that prohibited boating while “under the influence” of alcohol. 2012 S.D. Sess. Laws ch. 208, § 1. And in 2013, the Legislature reaffirmed that SDCL 32-23-1 remained enforceable. That Legislature amended SDCL 32-23-4.1 and SDCL 32-23-4.6, statutes that governed enhanced penalties for violating SDCL 32-23-1 if the offender had prior DUI convictions. 2013 S.D. Sess. Laws ch. 101, §§ 64, 65. Thus, contemporaneous and subsequent legislation reflects that the Legislature’s 2012 repeal of SDCL 34-20A-95 was not intended to prohibit DUI prosecutions under SDCL 32-23-1 [Chief Justice David Gilbertson, State v. Mundy-Giedd, 2014 S.D. 96, pp. 6–7].
The Supreme Court noted that Mundy-Giedd's narrow interpretation would have required the wholesale repeal of numerous alcohol-related laws, including minor consumption, public consumption, stricter commercial driver BAC limits, and FUI (flying under the influence). That's nuts, says the court. South Dakota's DUI law stands, and stood in 2013, when the cops picked up Mundy-Giedd for DUI.
p.s.: If our South Dakota Supreme Court can see the sense of looking beyond the exact text of a statute muddled by possible error, will our federal Supreme Court muster the same good sense in resolving King v. Burwell and rejecting a similarly devious effort to serve selfish ends by wreaking legal havoc with narrow interpretation?
If any legislature were going to do something as stupid as legalizing drunk driving, it would be ours.