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Senate Judiciary considers edits to H.44 on impaired-driving law; seeks strike-all amendment
Summary
The Senate Judiciary reviewed proposed technical and substantive changes to H.44, a bill revising impaired-driving statutes, focusing on federal ‘‘masking’’ compliance for commercial driver license records and how criminal refusal to give evidentiary blood samples should be defined and charged.
The Senate Judiciary convened April 15 to review amendments to H.44, a bill that makes miscellaneous changes to Vermont impaired-driving laws. Ben O’Brien, Office of Legislative Council, told the committee the Department of Motor Vehicles’ general counsel raised a federal compliance issue and proposed fixes, and staff recommended preparing a strike-all amendment for floor consideration.
The committee’s most immediate concern was federal ‘‘masking’’ rules that prevent states from suppressing or deferring entries on the Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) record database. "The state must not mask, defer imposition of the judgment, or allow an individual to enter into a diversion program that would prevent a commercial driver's license holder from appearing on the CDL’s driver record database," O’Brien said, describing language the DMV counsel proposed to cure a conflict between confidentiality in family-court adjudications and federal requirements.
A second major topic was how the statute should treat a person who does not submit to an evidentiary blood sample after a warrant is obtained. O’Brien summarized drafting options for subsection j and the criminal-refusal provision in subdivision 6(c), including whether the statute should say a person "shall submit," "shall not refuse to submit," or use conduct-based language such as "hinder," "obstruct" or "physically resist." "These are sort of words of art," O’Brien said, noting the choice of term carries nuanced legal consequences.
Senator Tashimi asked whether the committee should limit criminal liability to affirmative physical interference after a warrant has been obtained to avoid sweeping in passive noncooperation. "I think leaving and narrowing it down to potentially physically disrupts or physically obstructs the process...could be a more specific alternative that wouldn't necessarily sweep in the person who is just being apathetic to the whole process," Tashimi said.
Committee members discussed drawing on existing obstruction and resisting-arrest statutes to supply established definitions and case law. O’Brien agreed to pull relevant case law and prepare draft language clarifying that a violation of subsection 6(c) would be charged as a misdemeanor within the DUI statutory framework rather than as a felony or general obstruction-of-justice offense.
To make the committee’s intent clear on the floor, members asked Legislative Counsel to prepare a strike-all amendment that incorporates the agreed drafting changes. "Let's do the strike all then just because so that everyone else on the floor knows what we're talking about," a committee member said. The committee also directed staff to circulate the DMV-proposed masking language and to research case law on different terms (hinder, obstruct, inhibit, physically resist) for the next consideration of H.44.
The committee did not take a formal roll-call vote during the discussion. The meeting closed with staff tasked to circulate proposed language and supporting case law before the bill returns to the committee.
