Background

• Paul Julius Olson was arrested in Montana in 2014 for DUI with a BAC of 0.257 and pled guilty to Driving Under the Influence, Fourth or Subsequent Offense.
• For sentencing the State sought to treat prior out-of-state DUI convictions as prior convictions under Montana law.
• Olson had prior DUI convictions in Georgia (1999), Montana (2000), and Texas (2005 and 2007); he challenged using the Texas convictions, arguing Texas used a lower legal standard than Montana.
• The District Court held Olson’s two Texas DUI convictions were sufficiently similar to Montana DUI statutes to qualify as prior convictions under § 61-8-734(1)(a), MCA, making the 2014 conviction a fourth offense (felony).
• Olson appealed, arguing the Texas statutes allowed conviction under a lesser standard (i.e., lacked Montana’s rebuttable inference structure) and therefore were not “similar.”
• The Supreme Court of Montana affirmed, concluding Texas’s statutes (2005 & 2007) were similar to Montana’s DUI and DUI-per-se statutes.

Issues

Key Cases Cited

• State v. Krebs, 385 Mont. 328, 384 P.3d 98 (discussing standard of review and prior-conviction analysis)
• State v. Polaski, 325 Mont. 351, 106 P.3d 538 (holding out-of-state DUI law that allows conviction under a lesser standard is not "similar")
• State v. McNally, 310 Mont. 396, 50 P.3d 1080 (refusing to count Colorado DWAI convictions where impairment standard was "to the slightest degree")
• State v. Calvert, 373 Mont. 152, 316 P.3d 173 (compare statutes in effect at time of offense; distinguishes DUI and DUI-per-se)
• State v. Barrett, 381 Mont. 299, 358 P.3d 921 (DUI per se comparison between states)