Com. v. Wolfe

• Court: Superior Court of Pennsylvania
• Writing for the Court: SAYLOR
• Citation: 454 Pa.Super. 93,684 A.2d 642
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Jeffrey L. WOLFE, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 30 October 1996

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684 A.2d 642 454 Pa.Super. 93 COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania
v.
Jeffrey L. WOLFE, Appellant. Superior Court of Pennsylvania. Submitted Sept. 11, 1996.
Filed Oct. 30, 1996.

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[454 Pa.Super. 94] Joseph P. Green, Jr., West Chester, for appellant.

Stuart B. Suss, Assistant District Attorney, West Chester, for Commonwealth, appellee.

Before KELLY, SAYLOR and MONTEMURO ^*, JJ.

SAYLOR, Judge:

This is an appeal from an order entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County denying Appellant, Jeffrey Wolfe's, motion to dismiss charges brought against him for driving under the influence of alcohol ("DUI"), on the grounds that such prosecution is violative of his right to not be punished more than once for the same offense, where he has already been subject to the license suspension provisions of 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 1547(b)(1) for his refusal to submit to chemical testing. We affirm.

On April 9, 1995, Appellant's vehicle was stopped by the Tredyffrin Township police, who requested that Appellant perform a field sobriety test based upon their suspicion that Appellant was operating his vehicle while intoxicated. After failing the test, Appellant was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and was informed by the arresting officer that, pursuant to 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 1547(b), he could refuse to submit to chemical testing, but that if he did so, his driver's license would automatically be suspended for one year. ¹ Appellant[454 Pa.Super. 95] refused to take a breathalyzer or blood test. Consequently, Appellant's driver's license was suspended following an administrative hearing on October 26, 1995.

The Commonwealth subsequently filed criminal charges against Appellant for driving under the influence of alcohol in violation of 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 3731(a)(1). ² Appellant filed a motion to dismiss the charge on the grounds that such charge violated the provisions against successive punishment contained in the double jeopardy clauses of both the state and federal constitutions. Following a hearing, the trial court denied Appellant's motion, and this appeal followed. ³

Appellant's single contention on appeal is that suspension of his driver's license for refusal to submit to chemical testing constituted punishment, thereby barring any subsequent criminal prosecution for DUI as violative of the double jeopardy clauses of both the Fifth Amendment of the United States

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Constitution and Article I, Section 10 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. ⁴

The United States Supreme Court has not addressed the issue of whether a driver's license suspension triggers double jeopardy protection and thus bars subsequent criminal prosecution for the same conduct. Appellant, however, contends [454 Pa.Super. 96] that under the test enunciated by the Supreme Court in United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989), the civil sanction of license suspension constitutes "punishment" within the meaning of the double jeopardy clause, thereby barring any subsequent criminal prosecution for DUI.

In Halper, the Supreme Court considered "whether and under what circumstances a civil penalty may constitute 'punishment' for the purpose of double jeopardy analysis." Id., 490 U.S. at 436, 109 S.Ct. at 1895. The defendant in Halper had been convicted of violating the criminal false claims statute, 18 U.S.C. § 287, and had been sentenced and fined. After sentencing, the government filed a separate action under the remedial provisions of the civil False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-3731, to recover a statutory penalty for each false claim. The Supreme Court held that because the civil sanction imposed by the Act sought to recover an amount far exceeding the actual monetary loss suffered by the government as a result of the defendant's false claims, the civil penalty was punitive in nature. Accordingly, the Court remanded the case to the trial court for a determination of what portion of the statutory penalty could be sustained as compensation for the government's actual damages. ⁵

In making its determination, the Supreme Court stated:

[454 Pa.Super. 97] ... the labels "criminal" and "civil" are not of paramount importance. It is commonly understood that civil proceedings may advance punitive as well as remedial goals, and, conversely, that both punitive and remedial goals may be served by criminal penalties.... [T]he determination whether a given civil sanction constitutes punishment in the relevant sense requires a particularized assessment of the penalty imposed and the purposes that penalty may fairly be said to serve. Simply put, a civil as well as a criminal sanction constitutes punishment when the sanction as applied in the individual case serves the goal of punishment.

... [P]unishment serves the twin aims of retribution and deterrence....From these premises, it follows that a civil sanction that cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment, as we have come to understand the term.

Halper, supra, 490 U.S. at 447-448, 109 S.Ct. at 1901-1902.

The Court thus held that

under the Double Jeopardy Clause a defendant who already has been punished in a criminal prosecution may not be subjected to an additional civil sanction to the

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extent that the second sanction may not fairly be characterized as remedial, but only as a deterrent or retribution.

Id., 490 U.S. at 448-449, 109 S.Ct. at 1902.

Although Halper is to be read narrowly, applying only to cases involving civil penalties in which "a court must compare the harm suffered by the [g]overnment against the size of the penalty imposed," Ursery, supra, 518 U.S. at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 2145, the principles employed in Halper concerning whether a particular sanction constitutes "punishment" are instructive in the present case.

Therefore, we must assess the purposes that the civil sanction of license suspension may fairly be said to serve. See, Halper, supra. Although Pennsylvania state courts have not [454 Pa.Super. 98] specifically addressed the applicability of...