Endara-Caicedo v. N.Y.S. Dep't of Motor Vehicles
| Decision Date | 15 February 2022 |
| Docket Number | 7 |
| Citation | 38 N.Y.3d 20,184 N.E.3d 871,164 N.Y.S.3d 50 |
| Parties | In the Matter of Pedro ENDARA–CAICEDO, Appellant, v. NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES, et al., Respondents. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Robert S. Dean, Center for Appellate Litigation, New York City (V. Marika Meis of counsel), for appellant.
Letitia James, Attorney General, New York City (Philip J. Levitz, Barbara D. Underwood and Anisha S. Dasgupta of counsel), for respondents.
Gerstenzang, Sills, Cohn & Gerstenzang, Albany (Eric H. Sills of counsel), New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Garden City (Steven B. Epstein of counsel), and Steven Epstein DWI Institute, Garden City (Steven B. Epstein of counsel), for New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and another, amici curiae.
The primary question presented by this appeal is whether the two-hour rule in Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194(2)(a)(1), authorizing a chemical test to be taken from a motorist based upon deemed consent, is applicable to a Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) license revocation hearing held pursuant to Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194(2)(c) after a motorist's refusal to submit to a chemical test. Because the plain text of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194(2)(c) specifically limits the subject matter of the revocation hearing to four enumerated issues and the evidentiary two-hour limit for a deemed consent scenario is not one of those issues, we hold that the two-hour rule is not applicable to a DMV revocation hearing.
In 2016, petitioner was arrested for driving while intoxicated in violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192. Approximately three hours after his lawful arrest, petitioner was duly warned of the revocation consequences of a refusal to submit to a chemical test and refused the test. An administrative license revocation hearing was held. By statute, the issues at a DMV license revocation hearing "shall be limited to the following":
(1) whether the police had reasonable grounds to believe the motorist was driving in violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 ; (2) whether the arrest was lawful; (3) whether the motorist was sufficiently warned, prior to the refusal, in clear and unequivocal language, that a refusal to submit to the chemical test referenced in Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194(2)(a)(1) would result in the immediate suspension and subsequent revocation of his or her driver's license, independent of whether the motorist is found guilty of the charge for which he or she was arrested; and (4) whether the motorist refused "to submit to such chemical test or any portion thereof" ( Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194[2][c] ).
The Administrative Law Judge, upon proof establishing the four statutorily required issues, revoked petitioner's driver's license based on his refusal to submit to the chemical test and the determination was affirmed on appeal by the DMV Appeals Board. Petitioner commenced this CPLR article 78 proceeding seeking to annul the DMV's determination. Supreme Court denied the petition and dismissed the proceeding. The Appellate Division affirmed, holding that a motorist's refusal to submit to the chemical test can be used against the motorist in an administrative license revocation hearing, even if the refusal occurred more than two hours after the arrest ( 180 A.D.3d 499, 115 N.Y.S.3d 880 [1st Dept. 2020] ). This Court granted petitioner's motion for leave to appeal ( 35 N.Y.3d 1078, 130 N.Y.S.3d 424, 154 N.E.3d 10 [2020] ) and we now affirm.
Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194 sets forth the procedures for the arrest and testing of intoxicated drivers.1 Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194(2)(a) currently provides that a motorist operating a vehicle in New York "shall be deemed to have given consent to a chemical test," given by or at the direction of a police officer, for the purpose of determining the alcohol content of the motorist's blood. The statute places additional limitations on the deemed consent provision, requiring both that the officer must have reasonable grounds to believe the motorist was operating the vehicle in violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 and that the test must be administered "within two hours after such person has been placed under arrest for any such violation"—the two-hour rule ( Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194[2][a][1] ). The statute makes clear that, if a motorist refuses to submit to the test, the penalty is mandatory license revocation, the procedure for which is set forth in Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194(2)(c). Petitioner argues that the two-hour rule should be imported into the administrative hearing requirements of section 1194(2)(c) —that, before a motorist's license may be revoked, an administrative law judge must find that the motorist's refusal to submit to the chemical test occurred within two hours of arrest. The language of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194(2)(c), however, setting forth the four limited issues to be considered at the administrative revocation hearing, is clear and unambiguous and contains no requirement that, to warrant license revocation, there must be a finding that a motorist's refusal to submit to a chemical test occurred within two hours of the arrest.
The statutory framework addressing compulsory chemical tests for intoxicated drivers has been carefully crafted over decades by the legislature, with the balance in favor of facilitating the taking of the tests and removing drunk drivers from the road. Based on the evolution of the provisions at issue here—the two-hour evidentiary rule in subsection (2)(a)(1), the deemed consent provision of section 1194(2)(a), and the administrative hearing revocation provision of section 1194(2)(c) —any conclusion that a motorist, upon being arrested for violating Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192, may refuse a chemical test without consequence, is defeated by the statutory text and the undeniable, persistent efforts of the legislature to deter motorists from refusing chemical tests in drunk driving cases. Indeed, the mandatory administrative revocation hearing for a motorist's refusal to submit to a chemical test evolved independently and subsequently to the two-hour evidentiary rule relating to the admissibility of blood alcohol content (BAC) for criminal prosecutions of driving while intoxicated (DWI) committed in violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192. The different paths of the statutory provisions at issue illustrate the different purposes those provisions serve.
The two-hour rule dates back to 1941, when trial courts were first authorized to admit BAC evidence "taken within two hours of the time of the arrest" of an intoxicated driver "[u]pon the trial of any action or proceeding arising" therefrom (L 1941, ch 726, § 1 [then-Vehicle and Traffic Law § 70(5)]). As part of the statute defining the crime of driving while intoxicated, the provision was intended to eliminate guesswork as to the intoxicated condition of the driver, resulting in a higher percentage of convictions and exonerations of unintoxicated drivers (see Report of the Committee to Study Problems of Motor Vehicle Accidents, American Medical Association, May 1939, Bill Jacket, L 1941, ch 726).2
In the absence of a statutory provision authorizing the procedure for the police to obtain a chemical test, in 1953, the legislature enacted a separate provision, Vehicle and Traffic Law § 71–a, the precursor to the current deemed consent provision, under which a motorist was deemed to consent to a chemical test "administered at the direction of a police officer having reasonable grounds to suspect such person of driving in an intoxicated condition." In the event a motorist refused to submit to "such chemical test," the provision required that the commissioner "shall revoke his license" (L 1953, ch 854). At that time, evidence of a refusal to take the test, as opposed to the results of the test itself, was not admissible (see Sponsor's Mem, Bill Jacket, L 1973, ch 351), and there was no two-hour limitation in the deemed consent provision. Due process concerns with respect to the chemical test procedure and the revocation provision (see Matter of Schutt v. Macduff, 205 Misc. 43, 127 N.Y.S.2d 116 [Sup. Ct., Orange County 1954] ) led to the statute's amendment the following year to require an administrative hearing prior to license revocation (L 1954, ch 320). A requirement that the motorist had to be under arrest was also added, as was the authority to temporarily suspend the motorist's license without notice on the basis of a sworn police report, pending the determination of the hearing (L 1954, ch 320). The Vehicle and Traffic Law was recodified in 1959: section 70(5) containing the two-hour evidentiary rule and the substantive crime of DWI became section 1192, and section 71–a, containing the deemed consent and mandatory revocation for refusal provisions, became section 1194 (L 1959, ch 775).
The prerequisite refusal warnings were added to section 1194(1) in 1968 (L 1968, ch 85). The refusal warnings were intended to encourage more motorists to consent to the test and were applicable in the "completely separate" administrative proceeding context (see Mem of Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, Bill Jacket, L 1968, ch 85). In 1970, the legislature again recodified the intoxicated driving laws, removing the two-hour evidentiary rule from the offense of DWI ( Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 ) and adding it to the deemed consent provision ( Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194[1] ) in a long, unenumerated paragraph that also included the mandatory revocation language (L 1970, ch 275). The following year, the mandatory revocation procedures were removed from subdivision one and placed in separate subdivisions— Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194(2), (3), (4) (L 1971, ch 445). The admissibility of chemical test refusal evidence, in Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1194(2), was authorized in 1973 (L 1973, ch 351).
In 1980, there was a...
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