Notice of Implied Consent Rights: West Coast Edition

Two earlier posts (here and here) explore whether North Carolina’s implied consent statutes or the U.S. Constitution require that notice of implied consent rights be provided in language that a person speaks or understands.  As those posts report, the answer is unclear. There are no North Carolina appellate court decisions on point and courts in other states have reached conflicting results. Compare Yokoyama v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 356 N.W.2d 830, 831 (Minn. App. 1984) (rejecting the argument of a petitioner who “willingly blew into the testing machine” that he had a statutory right to have the implied consent advisory read to him in Japanese and finding that he “understood he was being asked to take the test,” which was the only understanding required) and People v. Wegielnik, 605 N.E.2d 487 (Ill. 1992) (explaining that “[b]ecause due process does not require that the summary suspension warnings be given at all, it does not require that they be given in a language the defendant understands”) with State v. Marquez, 998 A.2d 421, 435 (N.J. 2010) (concluding that statutory directive that officers “inform” defendant of implied consent rights in the context of the implied consent and refusal statutes, means that they must convey information in a language the person speaks or understands) and People v. Garcia-Cepero, 2008 WL 4681928 (N.Y. Super. Ct. October 23, 2008) (concluding that the State’s failure to provide an interpreter for the chemical analysis and field sobriety tests violates a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to present a complete defense). I’m blogging [...]