Tan v. Superior Court
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Based on a 2019 incident, Tan was charged with misdemeanor driving under the influence (DUI). Effective January 1, 2021, Penal Code section 1001.95, made defendants charged with misdemeanors generally eligible for diversion at the discretion of the trial judge. The law expressly exempts several offenses from eligibility for diversion, but DUI is not one of them. However, Vehicle Code section 23640, provides that those charged with DUI are categorically ineligible for diversion. Tan sought diversion, arguing that section 1001.95 superseded Vehicle Code section 23640.
The court of appeal upheld the denial of his petition. The two statutes can be reconciled and misdemeanor DUI convictions are not eligible for statutory diversion. Nothing in section 1001.95 indicates an affirmative intent to allow misdemeanor diversion for DUIs and Vehicle Code section 23640 clearly prohibits it; reconciling the two does not require rewriting the statutes, or striking a compromise the Legislature itself did not reach. The court noted that the scant legislative history was particularly ambiguous in this case and of little assistance in divining the will of the Legislature.
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