PROVIDENCE — The state Supreme Court yesterday ruled that harsher penalties, approved in 2006, do apply to motorists who refuse to take Breathalyzer tests.
In making the ruling, the high court rejected the argument that the new penalties were wiped out when Governor Carcieri signed a budget bill containing the law’s old language.
Justice Paul A. Suttell began the court’s 13-page opinion with a quote: “If you like laws and sausage, you should never watch either one being made.”
Suttell said, “Otto von Bismark’s laconic observation is apropos to this appeal in which we are asked to consider two legislative acts passed in the waning days of the 2005-2006 session of the General Assembly.”
Before the penalties changed, nearly 85 percent of motorists suspected of drunken driving in Rhode Island were refusing to submit to Breathalyzer tests, while the national average was 25 percent.
So in 2006, the General Assembly passed a law aimed at cracking down on those who refused to take the Alcohol Tester tests. For first offenses, the law doubled the minimum license suspension to six months, and it made subsequent offenses criminal rather than civil. For second offenses, the law provided penalties of up to six months in prison, fines of up to $1,000 and up to 100 hours of community service.
Governor Carcieri signed the bill on June 28, 2006. And two days later, he signed the annual budget bill, which added a $200 assessment for refusing a Breathalyser test but did not include the stiffer penalties.
Three men charged with Breathalyzer refusal — Theodore H. Such Jr., Eric Ahlborg and Robert MacDonald — asked then-Superior Court Judge Stephen J. Fortunato Jr. to declare “which of these amendments would control in penal actions brought by prosecutors against them.” And in January 2007, Fortunato, who has since retired, ruled that the budget bill was the “controlling statute.”
The Supreme Court put Fortunato’s ruling on hold, pending an appeal. During oral arguments in May, Pawtucket lawyer and former House Speaker John B. Harwood argued that the budget bill amended the penalties back to their prior level — except for adding the $200 assessment. Harwood, who represented Such, told the court, “A law doesn’t become a law until it reaches the governor’s desk.”
But in yesterday’s ruling, the Supreme Court noted that while the governor signed the refusal bill first, the Assembly passed the budget bill one day before it passed the refusal bill.
“Thus, at the point in the legislative process when both the House and the Senate passed the budget bill, said bill contained the correct language of the refusal statute as it then existed,” Suttell wrote. “The timing of the governor’s signature is irrelevant under the specific set of facts before us. As plaintiffs point out, the ‘Rhode Island Constitution vests legislative authority exclusively in the General Assembly.’ ”
The court said the governor does not have the power to repeal one of two bills simply by signing one before the other. Plus, Suttell wrote, “Our task in construing statutes is to give effect to legislative intent, not gubernatorial intent.”