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People v. Nettles1/26/2004
ution's argument that wrongful intent is an implicit element of the crime of bigamy and, because the defendant's stipulation included no admission of ill intent, and she attempted to prove she possessed a bona fide and reasonable belief that she was free to marry, the stipulation was not the legal equivalent of a slow plea of guilty on the bigamy charge requiring Boykin-Tahl advisements. (Gaul-Alexander, at p. 749.)
Defendant has the better argument: His stipulation was tantamount to a guilty plea on counts two and three.
Driving under the influence of alcohol and driving with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent or greater are general intent crimes. (See People v. Lewis (1983) 148 Cal.App.3d 614, 619, citing Pen.Code, § 20 ["In every crime or public offense there must exist a union, or joint operation of act and intent, or criminal negligence"]; but see Ostrow v. Municipal Court (1983) 149 Cal.App.3d 668 (Ostrow ).) [FN4] Thus, to establish that defendant acted with the requisite intent, the prosecution need only prove that he intentionally drove the car while under the influence of alcohol or with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent or greater. (Cf. People v. Lewis, supra, 148 Cal.App.3d at p. 619.) Defendant's stipulation that he "was under the influence of alcohol and had a blood-alcohol content above 0.08 percent at the time he was driving his vehicle on 53rd [Street]" therefore contained "all[ ] of the evidentiary facts necessary to a conviction of ... offense[s]" charged in those counts (cf. People v. Adams, supra, 6 Cal.4th at p. 581). Under these circumstances, the trial court erred in accepting the stipulation without obtaining Boykin-Tahl waivers.
FN4. Construing a prior version of section 23152, the Court of Appeal in Ostrow held that driving with a prescribed blood-alcohol concentration "falls within those regulatory offenses not requiring an intent element" (Ostrow, supra, 149 Cal.App.3d at p. 676), such as the " ' "many statutes enacted for the protection of the public health and safety, e.g., traffic and food and drug regulations, [for which] criminal sanctions are relied upon even if there is no wrongful intent. These offenses usually involve light penalties and no moral obloquy or damage to reputation. Although criminal sanctions are relied upon, the primary purpose of the statutes is regulation rather than punishment or correction. The offenses are not crimes in the orthodox sense, and wrongful intent is
not required [in the interest of enforcement]. [Citations.]" ' " (Id. at p. 675, quoting People v. Vogel (1956) 46 Cal.2d 798, 801, fn. 2, bracketed insertion appears in Vogel.)
We cannot agree that the crimes of driving under the influence or driving with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent should be placed in the same category with other traffic regulation violations. If once they " ' "involve[d] light penalties and no moral obloquy or damage to reputation" ' " (Ostrow, supra, 149 Cal.App.3d at p. 675), that is no longer the case. In recent years, the California Legislature has sought increasingly to punish severely those who operate a vehicle when their physical and mental faculties are impaired by voluntary alcohol consumption. (E.g., People v. Bennett (1991) 54 Cal.3d 1032, 1038-1039 [Enacting Penal Code section 191.5, which defined the crime of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, the Legislature stated: " 'The Legislature finds and declares that traffic accidents are the greatest cause of violent death in the United States and that over one-half of the ensuing fatalities are alcohol related.... In view of the severe threat to public safety which is posed by the intoxicated driver, there is a compelling need for more effective methods to identify and p
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