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State v. Velez1/3/2003
minal cases. Nor is it served by presenting this Court with a series of different fact-bound matters to decide. In the case before us today, defendant had no prior record. The public defender could have provided meaningful advice in this situation without detailed knowledge of the defendant's driving history. In other circumstances, the police may have an obligation to share information they have in order to enable the public defender to provide appropriate legal counsel. The police and the defender general should come to an agreement that will implement the goal of the Legislature that drivers asked to provide a breath sample have a *30 consultation with an attorney before they must make the decision whether or not to take the test. The consultation should be a meaningful one under the circumstances. We will not make DUI detainees the scapegoats in this stand-off between police and public defenders. [FN2]
FN2. This is primarily a conflict over access to public information, that is, disposition of criminal cases in this state. Law enforcement currently has effective access to that information from their database, but the public defenders do not because they cannot use the police database and cannot look up paper records in every district courthouse in the state in order to give immediate telephone advice.
The problem can be solved from the judiciary records, at least with respect to Vermont convictions. The docket entries, including conviction information, on all open and closed criminal cases (since 1978) are available electronically and can be searched on a statewide basis by name of defendant. Under this Court's Rules Governing Dissemination of Electronic Case Records, § 3(a), the public is entitled to those records, and the Court Administrator is authorized to provide electronic access from remote locations over the Internet. Accordingly, we direct the Court Administrator to provide that access to defenders as soon as possible so they can make the determination that will allow them to give more meaningful advice. If this proves workable, this decision should not
create any "scapegoats" whatsoever, despite the dissent's fears to the contrary.
Affirmed.
15. AMESTOY, C.J., dissenting.
The majority finds "no practical difference" between its analysis in this case and its rationale in **718 State v. Gilman, 173 Vt. 110, 787 A.2d 1238 (2001). I agree, and therefore again respectfully dissent.
16. According to 23 V.S.A. § 1202, every person who operates a vehicle on a Vermont highway has impliedly consented to an evidentiary breath test for the purposes of determining the concentration of alcohol or another drug in the blood. Id. § 1202(a)(1). An individual may refuse the test, but not without consequence. See id. § 1202(b) ("refusal may be introduced as evidence in a criminal proceeding"); see also State v. Madonna, 169 Vt. 98, 99, 726 A.2d 498, 499 (1999) ("the decision whether to take the test involves potentially serious consequences"). As such, the Legislature has provided individuals a statutory right to consult with an attorney prior to deciding whether or not to submit to the test. See 23 V.S.A. § 1202(c).
17. The above statutory scheme is clear in its efforts to balance the rights of individual motorists against the State's need to enforce the law. See Madonna, 169 Vt. at 100, 726 A.2d at 500. On one hand, the Legislature has provided individual motorists with not only a right to consult an attorney, but also a mechanism for promoting this consultation via "statewide 24-hour coverage seven days a week to assure that adequate legal services are available to persons entitled to consult an *31 attorney under this section." 23 V.S.A. § 1202(g). The State bears the burden of both informing a motori
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