A 9-1-1 caller in Ohio reported the unsafe vehicle in the early hours of the morning. Its movement was erratic, swerving all over the road, crossing the center line into the opposite traffic lane. It posed a real danger to anyone traveling the road in either direction and immediate police intervention was necessary to protect public safety. Calls like this one come in all the time, all across the country, but this one was a bit unusual because the unsafe vehicle was a horse-drawn buggy from Amish country.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt. The responding officer intervened and used emergency lights and sirens to stop the buggy. As the out-of-control vehicle continued on its erratic path, the officer pulled alongside it and observed the driver unconscious and slumped over. When police finally managed to convince the horse to stop, they conducted a standard drunk driving investigation.
The driver of the buggy performed poorly on field sobriety tests and admitted to drinking four cans of ‘spiked’ tea. His arrest may have been routine, but his prosecution, like the facts of the incident, was hardly ordinary.
Not all Drunk Driving Laws are the Same
Before the matter could ever come to trial, the driver’s attorney moved to dismiss the charges. Conceding that there was no dispute that his client was impaired by alcohol beyond the legal limit on the night of the arrest, the defense attorney instead argued that a horse-drawn buggy was simply not a “vehicle” according to Ohio’s criminal statute.
Drunk driving laws, commonly known as DUI, OUI, or DWI, depending on the state, are not universal. In Texas, for example, a DWI offense must occur in a public place, but there is no such requirement in Maine’s OUI law. The key to understanding what constitutes a crime in a given state is found in the exact wording of that state's statute, as interpreted by courts.
Ohio law calls the offense “Operating a Vehicle Under the Influence,” or “OVI.” The statute instructs that “No person shall operate any vehicle, streetcar, or trackless trolley within this state, if, at the time of the operation…[t]he person is under the influence of alcohol, a drug of abuse, or a combination of them.”
The trial judge denied the defense motion, but an appellate court decided the issue deserved some consideration, noting that the issue was one of first impression, meaning that no Ohio court had previously answered this particular question of law.
Additional Reading Required
Sometimes, the practice of law can be reduced to simply arguing about what words mean, and this was one of those cases. The appeals court recognized that the OVI statute itself did not define the word “vehicle,” and it was faced with two competing views from the prosecution and the defense. The rigorous analysis used to define a single word provides an excellent insight into the work of appellate law.
For guidance, the court first looked to another statute that defines vehicles according to the traffic code. That law defines a vehicle in very broad terms, with some specific exceptions for things like motorized wheelchairs, as “every device … in, upon, or by which any person or property may be transported or drawn upon the highway.”
From there, the court delved even deeper. Because neither “device” nor “drawn” were defined in the statute, the court turned to the latest edition of the dictionary to find those definitions. Piecing those definitions together, the court found that an Amish buggy was a vehicle because it used horses to "draw" (cause to follow by applying force) the "device" (a piece of equipment designed for transportation).
The court concluded that public policy concerns over traffic safety and the legislative intent of Ohio's OVI law also favored the argument that the horse-drawn buggy was a vehicle according to the statute. In the end, the defendant's novel semantic challenge was reined in, and his conviction was affirmed.
Ruling Provides a Roadmap for Future Cases
Although the defense lawyer’s argument did not ultimately succeed, raising an argument about the definition of “vehicle” was appropriately zealous client representation, and it resulted in a legal clarification that can inform future prosecutions in the state of Ohio. In other states, different wording of statutes might have demanded a different result.
Should a similar occurrence arise in the future, both the prosecution and defense will know that a horse-drawn buggy is a vehicle under Ohio law. However, maybe next time the defense counsel should challenge the meaning of the word “operate” in the statute.
After all, if the defendant was asleep in the buggy, wasn’t the horse the one who was driving?
Related Resources:
- Basketball Star Dearica Hambly Takes WNBA to Court (FindLaw’s Legally Weird)
- Who Are "the People" Entitled to Bear Arms? (FindLaw's Federal Courts)
- Drunk Driving and DUI Laws (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
