Gundersen v. Municipality of Anchorage

762 P.2d 104, 1988 Alas. App. LEXIS 91, 1988 WL 100104
CourtCourt of Appeals of Alaska
DecidedSeptember 30, 1988
DocketA-2112
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 762 P.2d 104 (Gundersen v. Municipality of Anchorage) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Alaska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gundersen v. Municipality of Anchorage, 762 P.2d 104, 1988 Alas. App. LEXIS 91, 1988 WL 100104 (Ala. Ct. App. 1988).

Opinions

OPINION

Before BRYNER, C.J., SINGLETON, J., and STEWART, District Court Judge.*

SINGLETON, Judge.

Dale M. Gundersen .was convicted by a jury of driving while intoxicated. Anchorage Municipal Code (AMC) § 09.28.020. He appeals, contending that the trial court erred in refusing to suppress the results of his Intoximeter test. He also challenges the trial court's ruling on jury instructions. We affirm.

[107]*107FACTS

Gundersen was arrested for driving while intoxicated after the vehicle he was driving collided with a parked car and he failed certain field sobriety tests. He was given an Intoximeter test and it registered a reading of .264 grams of alcohol per 210 liters of breath. No separate sample of Gun-dersen’s breath was taken or preserved. After Gundersen had taken the Intoxi-meter test, however, Anchorage Police Officer David Koch read him a “Notice of Right to an Independent Test.” The notice stated:

You are ... under arrest for the offense of driving while intoxicated. You have provided a sample of your breath for analysis on the Intoximeter 3000. You also have a right to obtain an independent test of your blood alcohol level. If you wish to have an independent test you will be transferred to a local medical facility where a sample of your blood will be drawn by qualified personnel at no charge to you. The blood sample will be stored at the medical facility for a period of 60 days. It will be your responsibility to make arrangements for analysis of your blood sample. The analysis itself will be done at your own expense. At this time you must decide whether or not you want an independent test performed. A refusal to decide will be taken [as] a waiver of your right to obtain an independent test.... I would like you to verbally answer whether you do or do not want a separate test, then check the box, read aloud the box that you have checked and sign here at the bottom, sir. Do you have any questions about the form, Mr. Gundersen?

Gundersen declined the offer of an independent test. Thereafter, the following dialogue occurred:

GUNDERSEN: I’m kind of wondering about the reasoning of the test.
[OFFICER] KOCH: The reason that we offer the blood test is so that you will have the means ... As it says you can check the accuracy of my machine by the blood test. If you want to be able to check the accuracy, if you doubt the accuracy of the machine, anything like that....
GUNDERSEN: They’re not a 100% though. The machine itself?
KOCH: Well, the machine is an extremely accurate machine.
GUNDERSEN: But it’s not a 100%?
KOCH: It’s acceptable within limits. It’s like any other machine, sir.
GUNDERSEN: Okay. But it’s not a 100% is what I’m asking.
KOCH: The machine is 100% within its capabilities.
GUNDERSEN: 100, 90, or 80?
KOCH: It’s 100% within its capabilities.

SUPPRESSION OF INTOXIMETER TEST RESULTS

Gundersen argues that his Intoximeter test should have been suppressed for a number of reasons. First, he contends that the police either intentionally or negligently misinformed him of the scope of his right to an independent chemical test of his blood alcohol level. Specifically, he argues that the form notice read by the arresting officer was incomplete because it did not make it clear to Gundersen that he could have any health professional of his choosing administer the test, and that a urine test or separate breath test could have been obtained, if he wished, in place of a blood test. Next, he argues that the form warning discouraged him from obtaining an independent test by telling him that while a blood sample would be drawn at no expense, he would have to pay for an independent test of that sample. In Gunder-sen’s view, the officer should also have told him that if he could not afford to pay for the test, one would be provided at no charge. Finally, Gundersen contends that the officer’s statement about the accuracy of the machine was incomplete because it did not mention the machine’s margin of error. For all these reasons, he contends that the trial court should have suppressed his Intoximeter results.

At the outset, it is important to recognize that Gundersen’s arguments rest on two slightly different rights. The first right springs from AMC § 09.28.023(E), and its [108]*108identical counterpart under state law, AS 28.35.033(e), which permit an individual arrested for driving while intoxicated, after having submitted to an Intoximeter test, to choose any qualified person to administer an independent chemical test. Similar rights arise under the Alaska Constitution. We will address Gundersen’s statutory rights first, and then proceed to a discussion of his constitutional rights.

Statutory Argument

Gundersen was arrested for driving while intoxicated. He was therefore subject to the municipality’s “implied consent law,” which required him to submit to a police administered chemical test of his breath or blood. AMC § 09.28.021; Svedlund v. Anchorage, 671 P.2d 378 (Alaska App.1983). Once he submitted to a chemical test of his breath or blood, he became eligible to have an independent test of his own choosing.

Anchorage Municipal Code § 09.28.023(E) provides:

The person tested may have a physician, or a qualified technician, chemist, registered nurse or other qualified person of his or her own choosing administer a chemical test in addition to the test administered at the direction of a law enforcement officer. The failure or inability to obtain an additional test by a person does not preclude the admission of evidence relating to the test taken at the direction of a law enforcement officer; the fact that the person under arrest sought to obtain such an additional test, and failed or was unable to do so, is likewise admissible in evidence.

Similar statutes exist in many jurisdictions and have generated a substantial amount of litigation. Some statutes expressly require that the defendant be given notice that he is entitled to an independent test. Others, including Alaska’s, do not require such notice. It is generally agreed that the statutory right to an independent sobriety test is actually a motorist’s right to be free of police interference when obtaining such a test by his own efforts and at his own expense. There is no statutory right to police assistance in obtaining the test. See Weatherford v. State, 286 Ark. 376, 692 S.W.2d 605, 606 (1985); Commonwealth v. Alano, 388 Mass. 871, 448 N.E.2d 1122, 1124-26 (1983). The statutes normally do not require that indigents be furnished independent tests at public expense. See Williford v. State, 284 Ark. 449, 683 S.W.2d 228, 229 (1985). Moreover, whether the police have substantially interfered with a defendant’s opportunity to obtain an independent test is a question of fact to be decided by the trial judge. See, e.g., Cunningham v. State, 255 Ga. 35, 334 S.E.2d 656, 658-59 (1985). Cases interpreting similar statutes are discussed in Annotation, Drunk Driving: Motorist’s Right to Private Sobriety Test, 45 A.L.R.4th 11-76 (1987 & Supp.1988).

Alaska law is in accord with these authorities. In

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Bluebook (online)
762 P.2d 104, 1988 Alas. App. LEXIS 91, 1988 WL 100104, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gundersen-v-municipality-of-anchorage-alaskactapp-1988.