Loder v. Iowa Dept. of Transp.
| Decision Date | 13 December 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-0303.,00-0303. |
| Citation | 622 N.W.2d 513 |
| Parties | Jason Ross LODER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. IOWA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, MOTOR VEHICLE DIVISION, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | Iowa Court of Appeals |
John L. Sandy of Sandy Law Firm, P.C., Spirit Lake, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, David A. Ferree, Assistant Attorney General, and Kerry Anderson, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Heard by SACKETT, C.J., and HUITINK and HECHT, JJ.
The petitioner-appellant, Jason Loder, appeals from the district court's ruling on judicial review affirming the revocation of his driver's license under Iowa Code section 321J.12 after a urine test revealed the presence of marijuana metabolites in his urine. Loder claims the revocation should be rescinded because the presence of marijuana metabolites in his chemical test sample bore no rational relationship to his ability to drive. Loder further claims an earlier revocation before he was twenty-one years old under Iowa Code section 321J.2A1 for driving with a blood alcohol content above .02 should not be used to enhance a revocation of his driver's license under Iowa Code section 321J.12.2 We affirm.
Loder was born on September 23, 1976. On December 26, 1998 he was arrested for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated in violation of Iowa Code section 321J.2 (1997). A preliminary breath test indicated that Loder's alcohol level was well below .10. A requested urine sample revealed the presence of marijuana metabolites at a concentration of ninety-three nanograms per milliliter. There was evidence Loder smoked marijuana during a two-month period ending December 21, 1998, but had not smoked it in the five days preceding his arrest. The State eventually amended the OWI charge to public intoxication and Loder pled guilty to that charge.
On the basis of the test results showing the presence of the metabolites, the DOT gave Loder notice his license would be revoked for one year under Iowa Code section 321J.12(1). The revocation was enhanced as a result of his conviction before he was twenty-one under Iowa Code section 321J.2A.3
Loder initiated contested case proceedings challenging his license revocation. The license revocation was upheld throughout administrative proceedings. Loder filed a petition for judicial review asserting the revocation violated his constitutional rights. The State claimed Loder failed to preserve error on his constitutional claims. In its ruling, the district court stated "the Court will review the case on the merits, assuming error (if any) has been preserved for review." The court denied Loder's petition and upheld the license revocation. The district court rejected Loder's claims that the presence of marijuana metabolites in his system bore no rational relationship to his ability to drive and that a prior revocation under Iowa Code section 321J.2A should not enhance the revocation under Iowa Code section 321J.12. The court ruled the department properly revoked Loder's driving privileges for one year under section 321J.12(1)(b).
Assignments of error in judicial review proceedings which raise constitutional challenges require independent evaluation of the totality of the evidence from which the questions arise. Iowa-Illinois Gas and Electric Co. v. Iowa State Commerce Comm'n, 412 N.W.2d 600 (Iowa 1987).
The State claims that Loder failed to preserve any issues attacking the constitutionality of Iowa Code section 321J.12(1) for the revocation based on the presence of a controlled substance by not citing to specific constitutional provisions. The State makes a similar claim regarding the enhancement of the revocation based on the previous revocation under Iowa Code section 321J.2A. The district court faced a similar challenge to Loder's preservation of error and reviewed the case on the merits assuming any error was preserved.
Because of the change in the statutory provisions of Iowa Code section 321J.12 concerning controlled substances, challenges such as Loder's are likely to recur. Therefore in the interest of judicial economy, we address Loder's constitutional challenges to the statute on the merits. See Shortridge v. State, 478 N.W.2d 613, 615 (Iowa 1991)
. A statute must clearly, palpably, and without doubt infringe upon the constitution before we will declare it unconstitutional. Larsson v. Iowa Bd. of Parole, 465 N.W.2d 272, 273 (Iowa 1991). "A person challenging a statute must negate every reasonable basis upon which the statute could be upheld as constitutional." Schroeder Oil Co. v. Iowa State Dep't of Revenue & Fin., 458 N.W.2d 602-603 (Iowa 1990).
Loder first challenges revocation of his driver's license under Iowa Code section 321J.12(1)(b) claiming the presence of marijuana metabolites in his system bears no rational relationship to his ability to drive. "Under the rational basis analysis, a statute is constitutional unless it is patently arbitrary and bears no rational relationship to a legitimate governmental interest." Ruden v. Parker, 462 N.W.2d 674, 676 (Iowa 1990) (quoting Bennett v. City of Redfield, 446 N.W.2d 467, 474 (Iowa 1989)). To survive this constitutional test (1) the statute must serve a legitimate governmental interest; and (2) the means employed by the statute must bear a rational relationship to that governmental interest. Glowacki v. Board of Med. Exam'rs, 501 N.W.2d 539, 541 (Iowa 1993).
State v. Blood, 360 N.W.2d 820, 822 (Iowa 1985). The same reasoning applies to section 321J.12. The administrative revocation of a driver's license is to protect the public in the use of Iowa's highways.
Loder argues the presence of marijuana metabolites in his system has no relationship to his ability to drive and, therefore, revoking his license for that reason bears no rational relationship to the governmental purpose of protecting the public on the highway.
Loder presented evidence that Michael L. Rehberg, a forensic toxicologist and administrator of Iowa's D.C.I. crime laboratory had testified "there is not a direct mathematical relationship or correlation between a urine/drug test and drug effect with this drug [marijuana] as there is with the drug alcohol." In addition, a notation on the test results from Loder's urine sample states, "[c]linical studies have not established a numerical correlation between urine drug concentration and impaired driving ability." Loder contends this evidence proves there is no direct relationship between the presence of drug metabolites and a persons' ability to drive. He argues revoking a person's driving privileges because of the presence of drug metabolites in one's urine is not rationally related to the purpose of protecting the public. We disagree.
The lack of any numerical correlation or direct relationship between the amount of marijuana metabolites in a person's system and the impairment of that person's ability to drive does not foreclose the finding that the statute is rationally related to protecting the public. The statute is aimed at keeping drivers who are impaired because of the use of illegal drugs off the highways. Unlike the blood alcohol concentration test used to measure alcohol impairment there is no similar test to measure marijuana impairment. There is, though, as was used here, a test to measure the use of marijuana, a drug illegal in the State of Iowa, in a person's body. There being no reliable indicator of impairment, the legislature could rationally decide that the public is best protected by prohibiting one from driving who has a measurable amount of marijuana metabolites.4
Other states which have addressed the constitutionality of similar statutory provisions based on a rational-relationship test have determined the prohibition against driving with the presence of a controlled substance in one's system was rationally related to the governmental goal of protecting other drivers and is a valid exercise of the state's police power. See Love v. State, 271 Ga. 398, 517 S.E.2d 53, 57 (1999)
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