Wyo House committee kills DUI bill in favor of Senate DUI bill

by Mary Angell, Cowboy State Free Press Reporter

CHEYENNE–Running short of time to consider bills in committee, the House Judiciary Committee today nixed a House bill designed to amend Wyoming’s Driving Under the Influence law, with the knowledge that a similar Senate file addresses many of the same issues.

Senate File 19, DUI Impairment Period, sponsored by Sen. Tony Ross, R-Laramie County, passed final reading in the Senate yesterday.

“The Ross bill can be amended,” committee chairman and sponsor of HB 38 Rep. Keith Gingery, R-Fremont/Teton, said in suggesting its indefinite postponement. “It’s easier to have one bill to work.”

Like the House bill, SF 19 contains a provision which changes the amount of time in which a driver may not exceed the maximum blood alcohol level of .08 percent from three hours to two hours.

It also extends from five to ten years the period of time during which a driver may be penalized more severely for subsequent convictions of driving under the influence of alcohol.

SF 19 spells out increasingly harsher penalties for second and third convictions for driving under the influence, up to the fourth or subsequent conviction within ten years being considered a felony offense, punishable by a fine of up to $10,000, a jail sentence of up to two years or both.

It does not contain the HB 38 provision that would make driving with a blood alcohol content greater than .15 percent Aggravated DUI, subject to the same penalties as a second offense DUI.

Nor does SF 19 contain the most controversial of provisions in HB 38, one that would make refusing to submit to a blood alcohol test a misdemeanor, with punishments the same as a first DUI offense: up to six months in jail, a $750 fine, or both.

Several law enforcement officials told the House Judiciary Committee last week that criminalizing refusal to submit to a test would give them a powerful tool in prosecuting DUI offenders. They said drunk drivers have learned to duck the system by refusing to submit to the test.

Several committee members expressed their concern that making it a crime to refuse to submit to a blood alcohol test would equate to forcing self-incrimination.

The House Judiciary Committee will have the opportunity to work SF 19 when it is assigned to them from the floor.