Blood Crime

So you're in Maricopa County, driving along, just fine, and the cops pull you over. Busted.  Via Reason:

An Arizona appeals court has ruled that motorists don’t actually have to be under the influence to be prosecuted for driving under the influence.

Via the Associated Press:

An appeals court has issued a ruling that upholds the right of authorities to prosecute pot smokers in Arizona for driving under the influence even when there is no evidence that they are actually high.

Ironically, while the law is facially absurd, the ruling of the Arizona Court of Appeals is completely logical.

Our legislature has determined it is unlawful for a person to drive a vehicle while there is any drug, as defined in A.R.S. § 13-3401 (2012), or "its metabolite" in the person’s body. A.R.S. § 28-1381(A)(3). This statutory prohibition "was enacted as part of Arizona’s comprehensive law regulating drivers under the influence of intoxicating liquor or drugs ("DUI") and designed to protect the public by reducing the terrible toll of life and limb on our roads."

The crime isn't driving while intoxicated. The crime is driving while having a metabolite in one's blood, even though the metabolite bears no connection to being under the influence or inability to drive safely.

The metabolite was a remnant of old marijuana use, possibly up to four weeks prior, and itself bore no connection to being high or compromising ability.  In other words, having the metabolite in one's blood meant nothing when it came to being fully able to drive safely.  What it did mean, however, was that sometime in the prior four weeks you smoked pot.

In Phillips, the defendant challenged the facial validity of A.R.S. § 28-692(A)(3) (1994) (now § 28-1381(A)(3)), arguing it was unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. 178 Ariz. at 370, 873 P.2d at 708. We disagreed, noting that the legislature intended to create a "per se prohibition" and a "flat ban on driving with any proscribed drugs in one’s system." Id. at 372, 873 P.2d at 710 (emphasis added). We determined that the legislative ban extends to all substances, whether capable of causing impairment or not.

Crazy as the outcome may seem, it is the logical outcome if one separates the law from its true purpose. As the court of appeals held, the law imposed a "flat ban on driving" after one smoked pot, even if it was long out of one's system but for the metabolite it left behind.

The question is whether this is the crime the legislature intended to create, or rather somebody, in their zeal to not let anyone escape conviction by arguing that the evidence of drug use was merely a metabolite rather than the active chemical, crafted a law the criminalized something well beyond what any rational law would demand.

In other words, the outcome of the law is ridiculous, but the problem isn't that the court interpreted the law wrong, but it was just a bad law.  In Arizona. Who would have guessed?

At the same time, the Court of Appeals wasn't constrained to reach this decision, separating the purpose of the from its effect.  Due process and equal protection analysis would have allowed the court to reject slavish adherence to strict construction of the legislative language by holding that a law that criminalizes conduct that is distinct from the evil the legislature sought to cure is overbroad and vague. 

Did the Arizona legislature really mean to create a punishment for all people who have a nonactive pot metabolite in their bloodstream without regard to their ability to safely drive a car?  The language could be read that way, but the justification for the conduct being criminal, living in a post-pot stage for whatever period of time it takes for a metabolite to dissipate from the blood stream, is the protection of lives on the road. Does it do that?  Nah.

Perhaps the court was trying to embarrass the legislature into crafting better laws by making such an absurd ruling. Perhaps they hate pot smokers so much that they want to criminalize their very existence, without regard to whether they present any risk of harm to anyone.  This is Arizona, the land of crazy law and wild courts, so who knows?

And yet, driving sober in Arizona without four weeks of smoking pot is a crime. Guide yourself accordingly. 

H/T FritzMuffKnuckle 

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