State v. Blanken

Murphy, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On November 20, 1970, appellee Blanken was charged with the motor vehicle offense of failing to yield the right-of-way in violation of Maryland Code (1967 Repl. Vol. and 1969 Supp.), Article 66% (Motor Vehicles), Section 232. Found guilty of this offense in the People’s Court of Anne Arundel County on December 14, 1970, Blanken appealed to the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County.

He there moved to dismiss the charge on the ground that under Chapter 534 of the Acts of 1970, Article 66% was repealed effective June 1, 1970, that the reenactment of the Article did not become effective under that Act until January 1, 1971, and, consequently, Section 232 under which he was convicted simply did not exist on November 20, 1970, the day on which he was charged with violating that Section. The lower court found merit in Blanken’s argument and dismissed the charge; in doing so, it concluded that the State had no motor vehicle laws in effect from June 1, 1970 to January 1, 1971, a period of seven months. We granted the State’s petition for a writ» of certiorari to review the decision of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County. 1 Immediately following oral argument in the case, we passed a per curiam ⁴⁶² order reversing the judgment of the lower court and declaring “that Article 66% of the Annotated Code of Maryland (as found in 1967 Replacement Volume, 1969 Supplement and 1970 Interim Supplement), repealed by Chapter 534 of the Acts of 1970, was effective up to the time of taking effect of the new Article 66% enacted by that same chapter to stand in its place.” We now give our reasons for so concluding. Chapter 534 of the Acts of 1970 accomplished a complete revision of the motor vehicle laws of this State.

It did so (a) by expressly repealing Article 41, Section 59B of the Code, dealing with the State’s acceptance of the benefits of the Federal Highway Safety Act of 1966, (b) by expressly repealing Article 66% as it then existed, and (c) by enacting “in lieu thereof” a new Article 66% “to stand in the place of the Article so repealed * * As enacted by Chapter 534, the new Article 66% was divided into nineteen subtitles. Section 19-107 thereof, entitled “Time of taking effect,” provided: “This article shall take effect from and after the 1st day of January, 1971, except for those provisions hereof as to which a different effective date is specifically provided.” (Emphasis supplied.) The lower court was of the view that because the Legislature expressly provided in Section 19-107 for an effective date of January 1, 1971 for “This article,” meaning the newly enacted Article 66%, but did not expressly specify an effective date for the repeal of the former Article 66%, the repeal became effective on June 1, 1970 in accordance with the provisions of Section 31 of Article 3 of the Maryland Constitution, which reads: “No Law passed by the General Assembly shall take effect until the first day of June, next after the Session, at which it may be passed, unless it be otherwise expressly declared therein. ⁴⁶³ The court reasoned that even if the Legislature intended that the effective date of the repeal of former Article 66/2 be January 1, 1971 so as to coincide with the effective date of the new Article 66V2, its failure expressly to so provide constituted an omission which the court had no power to supply without violating the principles of Birmingham v. Board of Public Works of Maryland, 249 Md. 443 . In that case it appeared that twelve words were inadvertently omitted from a statute authorizing the State to incur a certain debt; the effect of the omission was to render the statute unconstitutional on its face. The Court of Appeals indicated that the question before it did not concern a construction of the statute, nor did it involve the issue whether true legislative intent should prevail over precise grammatical construction or literal intent.

The question before it, the court indicated, involved the principle whether the court was empowered to enlarge upon the statute by including language presumably omitted by inadvertence. In refusing to supply the missing language by judicial construction the court referred to a number of its earlier cases concerning application of the doctrine of separation of powers; it held that as it could not invade the function of the Legislature, it had no power to correct an omission in the language in a statute, even though the omission was the obvious result of inadvertence. We think it clear beyond any question that the Legislature did not intend to repeal former Article 66 V2 effective June 1, 1970, and thus leave the State without a motor vehicle code until January 1, 1971. Appellee Blanken agrees that the Legislature intended no such result but claims that we are powerless to do anything about it under Birmingham .

We think otherwise. Unlike Birmingham , the present case does not involve the question of adding language to a statute inadvertently omitted by the Legislature, or of enlarging upon the words therein contained; rather, it simply involves a construction of the provisions of Chapter 534 to ascertain its effective date. ⁴⁶⁴ It is true, of course, that under Section 31 of Article 3 of the Maryland Constitution, an Act of the General Assembly automatically takes effect on the first day of June next following its passage “unless it be otherwise expressly declared therein.” A review of Chapter 534 in its entirety plainly reveals that the Legislature did, within the sense of the constitutional provision, expressly declare its intention that the repeal of former Article 66% and enactment of new Article 66% take effect simultaneously on January 1, 1971. The title of the Act expressly provided that the new Article 66% was being enacted “in lieu” of the old Article 66%, and was “to stand in the place of the Article so repealed.” That the Legislature intended the old Article 66% to remain operative until the effective date of the new Article 66% is made perfectly plain in a number of sections of the new Article where, in providing for the transition between the old and new Articles, it is explicitly stated, or implicitly indicated, that the old Article 66% remained in effect until January 1, 1971. 2 Further unmistakable evidence of the legisla ⁴⁶⁵ tive declaration that former Article 66% continue in effect until the effective date of new Article 66% is found in the provisions of Section 2 of Chapter 534. It was there expressly provided that any motor vehicle laws enacted at the same 1970 session of the General Assembly which amended, changed, or added to old Article 66% “shall prevail over anything inconsistent therewith in this Act;” that “all such separate acts shall be effective according to the legislative intent,” and should be “incorporated into and codified with the provisions of this Act if such incorporation and codification are reasonably possible.” It was the manifest purpose of this Section to permit amendments to former Article 66% until January 1, 1971, a purpose that could not be achieved unless