Hubbell v. Macduff

• Decision Date: 11 April 1957
• Citation: 141 N.E.2d 897,2 N.Y.2d 563,161 N.Y.S.2d 857
• Parties: , 141 N.E.2d 897 Matter of Allen W. HUBBELL, Respondent, v. James R. MACDUFF, as Comissioner of Motor Vehicles of the State of New York, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 857

161 N.Y.S.2d 857

2 N.Y.2d 563, 141 N.E.2d 897

Matter of Allen W. HUBBELL, Respondent, v. James R. MACDUFF, as Comissioner of Motor Vehicles of the State of New York, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 11, 1957.

Jacob K. Javits, Atty. Gen. (Philip J. Fitzgerald and James O. Moore, Jr., Albany, of counsel), for appellant.

Paul Scalzo, Utica, for respondent.

FULD, Judge.

In Astman v. Kelly, 2 N.Y.2d 567, 161 N.Y.S.2d 860, also decided today, we considered an amendment made in 1940 to section 335-a of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In the present case, we are called upon to construe a further amendment of that section, one enacted in 1953.

Allen Hubbell, following a plea of guilty in each instance, was convicted of three separate charges of speeding the first in October, 1953, the second in November, 1953, the third in July, 1954 and, some six weeks after the last conviction, the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles revoked his license to drive and suspended his certificate of registration (Vehicle and Traffic Law, Consol.Laws, c. 71, § 71, subd. 2, par. (c); § 94-a). Each of the three certificates of conviction filed with the commissioner indicated that in each case the magistrate had informed Hubbell at the time of his arraignment that a plea of guilty was equivalent to a conviction after trial and that, if he were convicted, his driving license and his registration certificates were 'subject to suspension and revocation as prescribed by law.'

Hubbell, however, claimed that he had not been so advised when he was charged with the second violation in November of 1953, and that, by virtue of that omission, the second conviction was void and could not serve as a predicate for disciplinary action. Accordingly, he brought the present article 78 proceeding to annul the commissioner's determination. In answer, the commissioner, after contending that the warning had actually been given on all three occasions, went on to argue that, in any event, there was no need to give the monition except in that case which resulted in the third conviction. The court at Special Term dismissed the proceeding, without indicating the ground of its decision. The Appellate Division, holding that section 335-a required the magistrate to inform the defendant of the consequences of a conviction in each case, reversed and remitted the matter to Special Term for a hearing to ascertain whether the petitioner had received such information at the time of his second arraignment. In so ruling, the Appellate Division granted the commissioner permission to appeal to this court upon a certified question.

Section 335-a of the Code of Criminal Procedure, as it stood before the 1953 amendment, required the magistrate to inform the defendant of the consequences of a conviction only if an adjudication of guilt in the case before him would or might lead to a revocation or suspension of the license or the registration certificate. See, e. g., Johnston v. Fletcher, 300 N.Y. 470, 88 N.E.2d 657; see, also, Ross v. Macduff, 309 N.Y. 56, 127 N.E.2d 806; De Lynn v. Macduff, 305 N.Y. 501, 114 N.E.2d 12; Long v. Macduff, 284 App.Div. 61, 131 N.Y.S.2d 718. The effectiveness of the statute was, however, considerably impaired by difficulties encountered in administering it. Either through an unawareness of the defendant's prior record or through an inability to figure the precise sort of warning called for that the disciplinary action to be taken was mandatory or permissive (cf. De Lynn v. Macduff, supra, 305 N.Y. 501, 507, 114 N.E.2d 12, 14; Eckerson v. Macduff, 284 App.Div. 56, 59, 130 N.Y.S.2d 367, 370) the magistrate not infrequently failed to comply with the demands of the statute.

It was to eliminate these and other complications that the Legislature passed the 1953 amendment (L.1953, ch. 288). ¹ And, after July 1, 1953, its effective date, the magistrate came under the necessity of giving a simple uniform warning, in the language prescribed by the statute, in every case of motor vehicle violation, whether or not a revocation or suspension maight be based upon it. ² As a result of the amendment, therefore, administration of the traffic...