Request By:
Mr. Gary Fields
State Lodge Trustee
Fraternal Order of Police
Jefferson County Lodge No. 14
6204 Price Lane
Louisville, Kentucky 40229
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
House Bill No. 14 was enacted by the 1984 General Assembly. It provides for the equipping of law enforcement vehicles with a screen. The screen is to be erected so as to form a barrier between the driver of the vehicle and the prisoner being transported. H.B. 14 reads in part:
"Section 1. A NEW SECTION OF KRS CHAPTER 61 IS CREATED TO READ AS FOLLOWS:
"(1) All conspicuously marked motor vehicles used by Kentucky state police, sheriffs' departments, county police, urban-county police, and city police for transporting prisoners, which are conspicuously marked as law enforcement vehicles, shall be equipped with a screen or other protective device between the area where prisoners are transported and the driver of the vehicle, and the area in which the prisoner is enclosed shall be equipped so that the doors and windows cannot be opened from the inside of the vehicle.
"(2) Subsection (1) shall not apply to vehicles used for investigative purposes nor to special purpose vehicles not normally used for the transportation of prisoners.
"Section 2. This Act shall take effect on January 1, 1985."
Your question is whether patrol cars, i.e., vehicles which are not ordinarily used to transport prisoners to the courts or to detention facilities, must be equipped with the protective screens?
Clearly the bill provides for a protective screen to be erected such that the drivers of law enforcement vehicles will be protected from prisoners who are being transported. In addition, the area in such vehicles containing the prisoners shall be equipped so that the doors and windows cannot be opened from the inside of the vehicle.
There are two elements of the bill which, we think, are dispositive of your question. First, Section 1 (1) provides in part that conspicuously marked law enforcement vehicles used by enumerated peace officers "for transporting prisoners" , must be equipped with the protective screen device. (Emphasis added). Next, Section 1 (2) provides that the screen device provisions of subsection (1) "shall not apply to vehicles used for investigative purposes nor to special purpose vehicles not normally used for the transportation of prisoners. " (Emphasis added).
The legislation is obviously designed to protect peace officers transporting prisoners. See KRS 446.010 (24).
CONCLUSION
Considering the literal language employed in the bill, and considering that, pursuant to KRS 446.080(4), such words and phrases mentioned above shall be construed according to the common and approved usage of language, it is our opinion that patrol cars, which are not ordinarily or normally used for transportation of prisoners, but which are used primarily for investigative and other purposes (other than transporting prisoners) , are not subject to the protective screen and special fixing of doors and windows in police vehicles. The court wrote, in
Young v. Bd. of Educ. Of Graves County, Ky.App., 661 S.W.2d 787 (1983) 789, that:
"Statutory construction and interpretation require that we give credence to the language used by the Legislature and that it be given its ordinary meaning.