88 Conn. App. 53 | Conn. App. Ct. | 2005
The defendant, Joseph P. DiPaolo, asks us to consider the legislative intent behind General Statutes § 14-227a (g), which enhances the penalties for recidivist drunken driving. Specifically, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly refused to dismiss the part B information charging him as a second time offender because his first conviction for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor was in New York, a state that does not have the equivalent of Connecticut’s diversionary alcohol education program,
On December 5, 2002, the defendant, a New York resident, was arrested in New Fairfield and charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor in violation of § 14-227a (a) (2). Thereafter, the state filed a part B information charging the defendant as a subsequent offender for a 1998 conviction of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor arising out of a 1997 arrest in New York. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss the part B information, which the court denied. Following the denial of the motion, the defendant agreed to a plea of nolo contendere conditioned on this appeal from the court’s ruling. The court sentenced the defendant as a second time offender under § 14-227a (g), which includes a mandatory minimum sentence of two years imprisonment with execution suspended after 120 days.
“The meaning of a statute shall, in the first instance, be ascertained from the text of the statute itself and its relationship to other statutes. If, after examining such text and considering such relationship, the meaning of such text is plain and unambiguous and does not yield absurd or unworkable results, extratextual evidence of the meaning of the statute shall not be considered.” General Statutes § l-2z. “When the statute in question is one of a criminal nature, [however] we are guided by additional tenets of statutory construction. First, it is axiomatic that we must refrain from imposing criminal liability where the legislature has not expressly so intended. . . . Second, [c]riminal statutes are not to be read more broadly than their language plainly requires and ambiguities are ordinarily to be resolved in favor of the defendant. . . . Finally, unless a contrary interpretation would frustrate an evident legislative intent, criminal statutes are governed by the fundamental principle that such statutes are to be strictly construed against the state. ... It is, however, equally understood that despite the nature of the statute, it must be construed, if possible, such that no clause, sentence or word shall be superfluous, void or insignificant .... In other words, [n]o part of a legislative
With those principles in mind, we turn to the relevant statutory text: “Penalties for operation while under the influence. Any person who violates any provision of subsection (a) of this section shall ... (2) for conviction of a second violation within ten years after a prior conviction for the same offense, (A) be fined not less than one thousand dollars or more than four thousand dollars, (B) be imprisoned not more than two years, one hundred twenty consecutive days of which may not be suspended or reduced in any manner, and sentenced to a period of probation requiring as a condition of such probation that such person perform one hundred hours of community service, as defined in section 14-227e, and (C) (i) have such person’s motor vehicle operator’s license or nonresident operating privilege suspended for three years .... For purposes of the imposition of penalties for a second or third and subsequent offense pursuant to this subsection ... a conviction in any other state of any offense the essential elements of which are determined by the court to be substantially the same as subdivision (1) or (2) of subsection (a) of this section . . . shall constitute a prior conviction for the same offense.” (Emphasis added.) General Statutes § 14-227a (g).
The defendant concedes in his brief that the statute “appears to be clear and unambiguous on its face, authorizing the state to charge the defendant with being a subsequent offender . . . after his second drunken driving arrest.” He argues nevertheless that, despite the unambiguous statutory language to the contrary, it was
“The test to determine ambiguity is whether the statute, when read in context, is susceptible to more than one reasonable inteipretation.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Tamowsky v. Socci, 271 Conn. 284, 287 n.3, 856 A.2d 408 (2004). The relevant provisions of § 14-227a (g), in this context, are not susceptible to more than one reasonable inteipretation. Our legislature chose the term “conviction,” rendering entirely irrelevant the defendant’s number of previous arrests for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The defendant does not dispute on appeal that he has a previous conviction in another state within the past ten years and that the elements of the offense for which he was convicted in New York are substantially similar to those in § 14-227a (a). Thus, the court followed the plain and unambiguous meaning of the statutory language in sentencing the defendant as a second time offender.
The defendant maintains that we should nevertheless review extratextual sources to discern the statute’s meaning because the plain meaning of the statute yields an absurd or unworkable result. Specifically, he claims
That result is neither absurd nor unworkable. It is, to the defendant, decidedly unfortunate that his first arrest
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
“General Statutes § 54-56g establishes a pretrial alcohol education program [in lieu of a possible conviction for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor] for persons charged with a violation of [General Statutes] § 14-227a. Applications for participation in this program may be granted or denied at the discretion of the trial court.” State v. Arisco, 39 Conn. App. 11, 16-17, 663 A.2d 442 (1995).
In his motion to dismiss the part B information, the defendant argued that (1) the application of the enhanced penalty violated his equal protection and due process rights; but see Kostrgewski v. Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, 52 Conn. App. 326, 342, 727 A.2d 233, cert. denied, 249 Conn. 910, 733 A.2d 227 (1999); and (2) the New York statute under which he was convicted, N.Y. Veh. & Traf. Law § 1192.03 (McKinney 1996), is not substantially similar to General Statutes § 14-227a (a). He does not raise either argument on appeal.
We note in passing that the defendant was also arrested in New York in 1991 with a blood alcohol content over the legal limit, but was allowed to plead to an infraction, driving while ability impaired. Consistent with our opinion today, that arrest has no bearing on our decision because he was not convicted of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor.