City of Warren v. John R. Schrock
| Decision Date | 20 November 1998 |
| Docket Number | 98-LW-5451,97-T-0176 |
| Parties | CITY OF WARREN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JOHN R. SCHROCK, Defendant-Appellant. CASE |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Criminal Appeal from the Warren Municipal Court Case No. 97 TRC 353(3)
HON ROBERT A. NADER, P.J., HON. WILLIAM M. O'NEILL, J., HON MARY CACIOPPO, J., Ret., Ninth Appellate District, sitting by assignment.
ATTY STANLEY A. ELKINS, WARREN CTIY PROSECUTOR, 141 South Street Warren, OH 44483, For Plaintiff-Appellee
ATTY. JAMES T. SAKER, P.O. Box 1348, Warren, OH 44482, For Defendant-Appellant
This is an accelerated calendar case submitted to this court on the briefs of the parties.
Appellant, John R. Schrock, appeals from his driving under the influence ("DUI") conviction in the Warren Municipal Court on September 19, 1997. Appellant had been stopped by the Warren Police Department on January 15, 1997, and ultimately arrested and charged with DUI in violation of the Warren Codified Ordinances. Appellant also received an administrative license suspension ("ALS") pursuant to R.C. 4511.191. Appellant paid a $250 reinstatement fee pursuant to R.C. 4511.191(L) after his ALS ended but before his DUI trial.
On September 12, 1997, appellant filed a motion to dismiss the DUI charge against him based on the doctrine of double jeopardy. Appellant argued that he had already been punished by the state when he was required to pay the $250 reinstatement fee before he could get his driver's license back. On September 16, 1997, the trial court denied appellant's motion.
On September 19, 1997, appellant entered a plea of no contest, was found guilty, and was sentenced accordingly. Appellant timely filed a notice of appeal and has set forth a single assignment of error, contending that the trial court erred by overruling his motion to dismiss and finding him guilty.
Appellant maintains that we should follow a pair of cases authored by Judge Ronald J. Rice in the Trumbull County Court, Eastern Division, State v. Logan (1995), 75 Ohio Misc.2d 79, and State v. Clark (1997), 86 Ohio Misc.2d 105. In Clark, Judge Rice relied on United States v. Halper (1989), 490 U.S. 435, where the United States Supreme Court held that a criminal trial will be precluded on double jeopardy grounds after a civil sanction has been imposed only in "rare cases" in which the civil sanction was "overwhelmingly disproportionate" to the damages caused to the state by the defendant's wrongful conduct. Id. at 449. Judge Rice reasoned that a replacement license costs less than ten dollars, and the $250 reinstatement fee goes to a wide variety of drunk-driving related programs that have nothing to do with replacing the license. Judge Rice concluded that, because the fee payment serves no remedial purpose but, instead, is "punishment," a person who has paid it after an ALS has ended cannot be sentenced for DUI. We disagree.
In 1997, the Supreme Court disavowed the Halper analytical approach to double jeopardy claims. In Hudson v. United States (1997), --- U.S. ---, 118 S.Ct. 448, Chief Justice Rehnquist explained that the court in Halper focused too narrowly on whether a civil sanction appears excessive in relation to its non-punitive purposes. Instead, the analysis should touch on several factors that were annunciated in Kennedy v. Mendoza- Martinez (1963), 372 U.S. 144, 168-169, including: (1) '(w)hether the sanction involves an affirmative disability or restraint'; (2) 'whether it has historically been regarded as punishment'; (3) 'whether it comes into play only on a finding of scienter'; (4) 'whether its operation will promote the traditional aims of punishment -- retribution and deterrence'; (5) 'whether the behavior to which it applies is already a crime'; (6) 'whether an alternative purpose to which it may rationally be connected is assignable for it'; and (7) 'whether it appears excessive in relation to the alternative purpose assigned.'
The $250 reinstatement fee does not involve a disability or restraint in the same sense as does an ALS or prison sentence. It comes into play only when a police officer, acting as an agent for the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, takes administrative action to suspend a person's license. It does not technically come into play upon a finding of scienter. In that sense, the conduct to which it applies is not the drinking and driving, but the act of re-applying for the license. True, the fee may remotely serve the purposes of retribution and punishment, but it can fairly be said that there is a valid alternative purpose for the fee--to compensate the government and society for some of the costs associated with enforcing drug and alcohol laws. The main consideration here is whether the fee appears to be excessive in relation to that alternative purpose.
In State v. Hlavin (Jan. 19, 1996), Geauga App. No. 95-G-1912, unreported, at 11-12, Judge Christley wrote:
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