Price v. Reed
| Decision Date | 08 July 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 62195,62195 |
| Parties | Edward Keith PRICE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Paul W. REED, Jr., Commissioner, Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Blair Easley, John K. Lindsey, Dept. of Public Safety, Oklahoma City, for defendant-appellant.
Stephen D. Beam, Weatherford, for plaintiff-appellee.
Under challenge here is the constitutionality of the implied consent law, 47 O.S.Supp.1982 § 754. 1 The questions presented are whether § 754, insofar as it appears to authorize a determination to be made--in a postacquittal driver's license revocation hearing--that the arresting officer had reasonable grounds to believe the accused, while under the influence of alcohol, was in actual, physical control of a vehicle violates the constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy by subjecting the licensee to a retrial of a criminal offense or to multiple punishments for its commission and constitutes an impermissible encroachment either by the executive or the legislative branches upon powers that are constitutionally ascribed to the judiciary. We answer both questions in the negative.
Edward Price [Price] was arrested and charged with being in actual, physical control of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. He voluntarily submitted to a breath test. Its results showed that he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.18. Price then received notice his driver's license would be suspended for ninety days. After Price had been acquitted of the charge in municipal court, the Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety [Department] revoked his driver's license for a period of three months. Following an administrative hearing held at Price's request the revocation order was sustained.
Price appealed from the Department's order to the district court. At a de novo trial, no controversy was tendered as to any of the four issues defined in 47 O.S.Supp.1982 § 754(5)(a). 2 Although the trial court found that Price had been in actual, physical control of a vehicle while his blood-alcohol content was over 0.10, it set aside the Department's revocation order, declaring § 754 unconstitutional insofar as it may affect a person who was in actual, physical control of a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, because it violates Art. 2, § 21, Okl. Const. 3 and Art. 4, § 1 Okl. Const. 4 For the reasons to be stated, we reverse the trial court's reinstatement of Price's driver's license.
A DRIVER'S LICENSE REVOCATION WHICH RESTS ON THE SAME FACTS
Price argues that because his driver's license revocation hearing before the Department followed his acquittal in municipal court on criminal charges arising from the same incident, he was impermissibly placed twice in jeopardy. We disagree.
Oklahoma's prohibition against double jeopardy, Art. 2, § 21, Okl. Const., provides that no one, The federal counterpart--the Fifth Amendment, U.S. Const. 5 --is applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. 6
Federal and state jurisprudence both recognize that three separate guarantees make up the double jeopardy clause. The provision affords protection from a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal, a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction and multiple punishments for the same offense. 7
While the primary goal of barring retrial on a criminal charge after acquittal is to prevent the State from mounting successive prosecutions to wear down the defendant, 8 an acquittal is never a bar to a civil action that arises out of the same facts as those which formed the basis of the criminal offense. 9 No acquittal proves that the defendant is innocent; it merely reflects that there was a reasonable doubt in the jury's mind as to his guilt. Moreover, an acquittal does not rule out the possibility that the government could show, by a preponderance of the evidence 10 adduced in a civil contest, that the acquitted criminal defendant, while under the influence of alcohol, was in actual, physical control of a motor vehicle. 11 The difference in the relative burdens of proof in criminal and civil actions makes the bar of collateral estoppel (issue preclusion) inapplicable. 12
In short, the double jeopardy clause does not raise an automatic barrier to the imposition of both a criminal and a civil sanction for the same act or omission. 13 Double jeopardy would be invocable here only if the driver's license revocation sanction were intended and did qualify as "punishment" so that the proceeding to revoke was essentially a criminal retrial 14 or the sanctions were so punitive either in purpose or in effect as to transform what may have been intended as a civil remedy into a criminal penalty.
In Robertson v. State ex rel. Lester 15 we held that a driver's license revocation hearing under the implied consent law then in force was an administrative proceeding, civil/regulatory in nature and distinct from any criminal charge. Later-enacted amendments to § 754 have not altered the essential character of that hearing. 16 Furthermore, a criminal trial exacts a personal penalty from a convicted defendant in the form of a fine or incarceration, while a postacquittal proceeding to assess one's continued eligibility for a driver's license (as a result of noncompliance with the implied consent law) addresses a person's continued fitness to hold a license. 17
Price relies on Johnson v. State 18--a case decided entirely in the context of the criminal process--and seeks to apply its language to the regulatory proceeding here by (a) equating the revocation hearing to a criminal trial and (b) characterizing the temporary revocation of his license as a "penalty" because his employment makes travel necessary.
Having earlier rejected the theory that a revocation hearing is the equivalent of a criminal trial, we likewise recede from the notion that a temporary revocation of one's driver's license is a form of criminal punishment which implicates the fundamental law's protection against double jeopardy. Revocation of a driver's license is part of a civil/regulatory scheme that serves a governmental purpose vastly different from criminal punishment. The state's interest here is to foster safety by temporarily removing from public thoroughfares those licensees who have exhibited dangerous or erratic behavior. 19 Because a civil revocation proceeding is distinct from criminal law enforcement, the double jeopardy clause cannot be implicated. One's claim to a driver's license is indeed a protectible property interest 20 that may not be terminated without due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. 21 In an appeal from a driver's license revocation order the focus is hence not on the double jeopardy clause but rather on the due process standards that are built into the regulatory scheme and were applied in the proceedings below. We reiterate our holdings in Robertson and Application of Baggett 22 that an acquittal upon the criminal charge of being in actual, physical control of a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol raises no constitutional barrier to a regulatory proceeding for the revocation of a driver's license.
Price argues that the provisions of § 754 "encroach" upon the power of the judicial service in violation of Art. 4, § 1, Okl. Const., 23 because a § 754 license revocation calls for the application of an impermissibly reduced standard of persuasion. He asserts that § 754 abrogates the court's "inherent" right to structure a meaningful judicial inquiry by lowering the traditional "preponderance-of-the-evidence" to a "reasonable-grounds-to-believe" standard. He urges that the preponderance-of-the-evidence test constitutes the irreducible constitutional minimum under the due process clause of Art. 2, § 7, Okl. Const.
Price's argument is without merit. The clear language of § 754(5) defines the range of inquiry--i.e. the issues to be resolved--rather than the burden of proof. 24 Preponderance of the evidence is the measure of evidentiary persuasion to be used in revocation hearings. 25 The district court implicitly applied this standard in finding that the arresting officer had reasonable grounds to believe that Price, while under the influence of alcohol, was in actual, physical control of the vehicle. 26
The legislature may define the range of inquiry to be conducted in proceedings for temporary revocation of a driver's license. By Art. 5, § 36, Okl. Const., legislative authority is extended to all rightful subjects of legislation. 27 Any doubt as to the legislature's power to act should be resolved in favor of the enactment's validity. 28 Both the issuance and revocation of drivers' licenses may be statutorily regulated for the protection of the traveling public. If the statute is not fraught with infirmity and due process was in fact applied, there can be no constitutional flaw either in the regulatory scheme or in the procedure.
The district court declined to rule on Price's other due process claims under Art. 2, § 7, Okl. Const. No specific violation of the fundamental law's due process safeguards is called to our attention. Moreover, since Price does not contend on appeal that the trial court's reinstatement of his driver's license should be affirmed as legally correct because he was in fact deprived of some basic constitutional rights in the hearings conducted before the Department, we need not pause here to consider any error in failing to...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
City of Oklahoma City v. Oklahoma Tax Com'n
...Dist. Court, 606 P.2d 545, 547-48 (Okla.1979).12 Fair School Finance Council v. State, 746 P.2d 1135, 1150 (Okla.1987); Price v. Reed, 725 P.2d 1254, 1261 (Okla.1986).13 State v. Goforth, see note 11, supra; Maule v. Independent School Dist. No. 9, 714 P.2d 198, 203 (Okla.1985).14 State ex ......
-
State v. Pigg (In re M.K.T.)
...impervious to reversal because it is correct in result.") citing Woolfolk v. Semrod, 1960 OK 98, 351 P.2d 742, 745; Price v. Reed, 1986 OK 43, 725 P.2d 1254, 1261.93 In re Assessment of Personal Property Taxes, 2008 OK 94, n. 85, 234 P.3d 938, 960, cert. denied sub nom. Missouri Gas Energy ......
-
Hunsucker v. Fallin, 116,131
...for seizure and destruction. No opportunity to challenge this seizure and destruction is given to the driver. Respondents rely upon Price v. Reed , supra , and the constitutionality of an immediate seizure of a license. However, the license seizure in Price was part of an administrative/reg......
-
Hedrick v. Comm'r of the Dep't of Pub. Safety
...at the option of the pleader be made by motion: 1. Lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter; 2. Lack of jurisdiction over the person;....” 46.Price v. Reed, 1986 OK 43, 725 P.2d 1254, 1261. 47.Price noted language in the 1982 version of § 754(5)(a) which discussed the scope of issues at......