State v. Schimanski

344 Conn. 435
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
DecidedAugust 23, 2022
DocketSC20550
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 344 Conn. 435 (State v. Schimanski) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Schimanski, 344 Conn. 435 (Colo. 2022).

Opinion

*********************************************** The “officially released” date that appears near the be- ginning of each opinion is the date the opinion will be pub- lished in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it was released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the be- ginning of all time periods for filing postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion.

All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecticut Reports and Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the advance release version of an opinion and the latest version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest version is to be considered authoritative.

The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publica- tions, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. *********************************************** STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. ANASTASIA SCHIMANSKI (SC 20550) Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D’Auria, Mullins, Kahn, Ecker and Keller, Js.

Syllabus

Pursuant to statute ((Rev. to 2017) § 14-227b (i) (1)), the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles shall suspend, for a period of forty-five days, the motor vehicle operator’s license of a person against whom a decision was issued concerning, inter alia, a refusal to submit to a blood, breath or urine test to determine sobriety, and, as a condition for the restoration of that license, ‘‘such person shall be required to install an ignition interlock device on each motor vehicle owned or operated by such person and, upon such restoration, be prohibited from operating a motor vehicle unless such motor vehicle is equipped with a functioning, approved ignition interlock device’’ for a specified period of time. Convicted, on a conditional plea of nolo contendere, of the crime of operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license in violation of the applicable statute (§ 14-215 (c) (1)), the defendant appealed to the Appellate Court. The defendant had been arrested and charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, and her license was suspended for forty-five days pursuant to § 14-227b (i) (1) as a result of her refusal to take a chemical alcohol test. Two days after the forty-five day license suspension period lapsed, the defendant allegedly struck another vehicle while operating a motor vehicle that did not have an ignition interlock device installed in it. As a result of that incident, the defendant was charged in the present case with, inter alia, operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license. The defendant moved to dismiss that charge on the ground that she could not have violated § 14- 215 (c) (1) because the forty-five day license suspension period ended two days before the incident. The trial court disagreed, concluding that the installation of an ignition interlock device is a mandatory statutory requirement for the restoration of a license that has been suspended under § 14-227b and that the defendant’s suspended license was not restored until she had an ignition interlock device installed in her vehicle approximately one month after the incident. On appeal to the Appellate Court from the judgment of conviction, that court affirmed the trial court’s judgment, concluding, on the basis of its interpretation of the relevant statutes, that the defendant’s license remained suspended fol- lowing the forty-five day statutory period until she installed the ignition interlock device because § 14-227b (i) (1) mandates the installation of such a device in any motor vehicle operated by a person whose license has been suspended under the statute before the restoration of her license and does not contemplate an interim period during which such person may lawfully operate a motor vehicle without installing such a device. In reaching its decision, the Appellate Court determined that State v. Jacobson (31 Conn. App. 797), and State v. Cook (36 Conn. App. 710), on which the defendant relied, were not applicable to the present case because they were decided prior to certain amendments to the relevant statutes that rendered the analysis in those cases inapposite. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court. Held that the Appellate Court incorrectly concluded that § 14-227b (i) (1) extends the suspension of a person’s license beyond the specified forty-five day period until the motor vehicle operator subject to the suspension has installed an ignition interlock device, and, accordingly, the judgment of the Appellate Court was reversed insofar as that court upheld the defendant’s conviction of operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license, and the case was remanded with direction to reverse the judgment of conviction and to render judgment dismissing the infor- mation: this court concluded, after a review of the text of § 14-227b (i) (1) and its relationship to other relevant statutes, that the statute clearly and unambiguously imposes a forty-five day license suspension period, after which the operator’s license is no longer ‘‘under suspension’’ for purposes of § 14-215 (c) (1), the plain language of § 14-227b (i) (1) having indicating that the legislature made the installation of an ignition interlock device a prerequisite for the restoration of the operator’s license but not for the expiration of the suspension period; moreover, this court, in reading the statute (§ 14-215b) setting forth the penalties for operating a motor vehicle after the expiration of a suspension period and without obtaining reinstatement and § 14-227b (i) (1) together, con- cluded that the completion of the forty-five day suspension period is necessary, but not a condition, for the restoration of an operator’s license under § 14-227b (i) (1) and is separate and distinct from the additional restoration precondition that the operator install an ignition interlock device; furthermore, the Appellate Court incorrectly determined that Jacobson and Cook were inapplicable to, and controlling of, the statutory interpretation issue in the present case on the ground that the versions of the relevant statutes at issue in those cases predated statutory amend- ments that added an ignition interlock device requirement as a condition for license restoration, as the courts in both of those cases based their decisions on the fixed, unqualified language limiting the duration of the statutory suspension periods and concluded that, in the absence of express statutory language to the contrary, requirements for license restoration do not concurrently operate as preconditions for the termina- tion of a license suspension period, and the rationale in Jacobson and Cook was not rendered obsolete by virtue of the statutory amendments, as the versions of the statutes applicable to the present case still provided a fixed, unqualified license suspension period; in addition, contrary to the Appellate Court’s conclusion that the defendant’s interpretation of § 14-227b (i) (1) would yield an absurd result because a person whose license has been suspended pursuant to that statute would have an incentive not to install an ignition interlock device and thereby complete the restoration process in order to avoid harsher penalties, a related statute ((Rev.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
344 Conn. 435, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-schimanski-conn-2022.