Fowler v. State

At 8:00 a.m. on July 4, 2001, Eric Fowler (defendant) was arrested for driving while intoxicated (DWI). Because Fowler had two prior DWI arrests in the preceding 10 years, the State of Alaska (plaintiff) charged Fowler with felony DWI. Historically, Alaska’s look-back window for DWI offenses was five years, and an offender was charged with felony DWI only if the offender had three or more DWI arrests within five years. In May 2001, the Alaska legislature passed a bill extending the look-back window to 10 years (the look-back extension bill); the specified effective date was July 1, 2001. However, Alaska’s governor did not sign the look-back extension bill until July 3. Fowler challenged the felony charges, arguing that (1) because the governor had failed to sign the look-back extension bill before the legislature’s specified effective date, the 10-year look-back window was inapplicable, and (2) Fowler was not subject to felony charges under the five-year look-back window. Specifically, Fowler argued that a bill signed by the governor after the legislature’s specified effective date should be treated as if an effective date had not been specified. In Alaska, if no effective date was specified, bills went into effect 90 days after the governor signed the bill into law. Alternatively, Fowler argued that the look-back extension bill could not go into effect on July 4 because July 4 was a state holiday. The trial court denied Fowler’s challenge, holding that because the look-back extension bill was signed on July 3, it went into effect at 12:01 a.m. on July 4, hours before Fowler’s arrest. Fowler appealed.