Stewart v. State
| Decision Date | 30 December 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 49S02-9904-CR-211.,49S02-9904-CR-211. |
| Citation | 721 N.E.2d 876 |
| Parties | Ernest STEWART, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below). |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
William F. Thoms, Jr., Indianapolis, Indiana, Attorney for Appellant.
Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney General of Indiana, Randi F. Elfenbaum, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana, Attorneys for Appellee.
Appellant Ernest Stewart contends that his conviction for driving while his license was suspended as an habitual traffic violator must be reversed because the Bureau of Motor Vehicles sent him an inadequate notice. We hold otherwise.
The Bureau determined Stewart to be an habitual violator, and on August 23, 1993, it mailed him a notice of its determination. The current case arose on October 5, 1995, when police discovered a dazed and bloodied Stewart behind the wheel of his Cadillac after he crashed into a utility pole at high noon. Stewart did not have his license with him, and he was transported to the hospital before the investigating officer could check the status of the license. Subsequent inquiry revealed Stewart's 1993 adjudication as an habitual traffic violator. The State eventually charged Stewart with having "operated a motor vehicle in Marion County during the Habitual Traffic Violator suspension of his driving privilege," a class D felony (R. at 8.)
At trial, the State introduced into evidence Stewart's official driving record. The record included a letter from the BMV to Stewart dated August 23, 1993, titled "Habitual Traffic Violator Notice of Suspension," and a certification by a BMV clerk that the letter was mailed that same day. The letter informed Stewart he had been determined to be an habitual violator and that his license would be suspended for ten years beginning October 1, 1993. It also informed Stewart that he could request an administrative review.
The record also contained a second BMV letter to Stewart dated November 30, 1995, which stated in its entirety:
(R. at 39.)
Stewart objected to the exhibit, claiming the certification of the record was incomplete and that the State had not established that the record was his. The court overruled Stewart's objections and admitted the exhibit. The State rested. Stewart requested a verdict on the evidence, saying the State had failed to show that the address to which the 1995 notice was sent was his last known address.
There followed a lengthy discussion by the parties and the court concerning the addresses to which the two notices were sent. From that discussion, it appeared plain enough that the first notice was mailed to Stewart's latest address as BMV knew it at the time. The court denied Stewart's motion for a verdict on the evidence. Stewart rested. The court found him guilty as charged. It sentenced Stewart to 545 days in jail (suspending 535 days), suspended his license for life, ordered one year's probation, and assessed fines, fees, and costs of $325.
Stewart appealed his conviction on the grounds that the State had failed to prove it mailed the 1995 notice informing him of his chance for judicial review, contending that this constituted reversible error under Brown v. State, 677 N.E.2d 517 (Ind.1997).1 The State argued that there was sufficient evidence presented to infer that the 1995 notice had been mailed. The Court of Appeals agreed with Stewart and reversed his conviction. Stewart v. State, 704 N.E.2d 1110 (Ind.Ct.App.1999).
The State petitioned for transfer, arguing that there was conflicting authority in the Court of Appeals about whether proof of mailing a notice of suspension is a matter of "evidentiary foundation" that is waived if not raised at trial. We granted the State's petition.
The law at issue in this appeal, Ind.Code § 9-30-10-4, reads: "A person who operates a motor vehicle: (1) while the person's driving privileges are suspended under this chapter...; or (2) in violation of the restrictions imposed under this chapter... commits a Class D felony." Our case law has not been kind to a relatively simple statute.
The section in question is part of a larger legislative scheme, Ind.Code ch. 9-30-10, governing repeat violation of traffic laws. The legislature has spelled out (1) the means by which a person is determined to be an habitual offender; (2) the means by which the BMV is to notify a person of its determination that the person is an habitual traffic violator and of his rights to challenge the determination before the agency; (3) how one may seek administrative review of BMV's determination; (4) how a person may seek judicial review of the BMV's determination; and (6) the offense and penalties of operating a motor vehicle in violation of the chapter.
This Court's recent encounters with law in this field commenced with State v. Keihn, 542 N.E.2d 963 (Ind.1989). There, we confronted the fact that the criminal provisions for driving on a suspended license do not contain an explicit mens rea. We outlined a methodology for analyzing such criminal statutes in order to determine which ones should be interpreted as requiring a showing of intent and which ones should be regarded as strict liability offenses. Applying this methodology to the misdemeanor statute for driving while license is suspended,2 we held that the State "must prove the defendant's knowledge of the suspension of his license." Keihn, 542 N.E.2d at 968.
In so holding, we associated ourselves with the decision in Burdine v. State, 510 N.E.2d 1385 (Ind.Ct.App.1987), trans. denied. In that case, the Court of Appeals held that to achieve a conviction for driving after having been adjudged an habitual traffic violator ("HTV") the State must prove that "the defendant knew or reasonably could have known that his driving privileges had been suspended as a result of having been determined to be a habitual offender." Id. at 1389, cited in Keihn, 542 N.E.2d at 964
. There had been no proof in Burdine that the State had even mailed its suspension notice (or that Burdine knew about it in any other way), so the Court of Appeals held the evidence insufficient. Id.
These two cases adequately addressed the question of criminal intent for purposes of driving while suspended or driving after being adjudged an habitual violator. For a while, they seemed to suffice. See, e.g., Stanek v. State, 519 N.E.2d 1263 (Ind.Ct.App.1988)
()
Then, the caselaw took a slight turn in Bishop v. State, 638 N.E.2d 1278 (Ind.Ct. App.1994). In Bishop's case, the BMV tendered as a trial exhibit its own computer record showing that it had mailed him a notice of his habitual violator adjudication, but it did not tender a copy of the notice itself. Bishop argued that the State thus had not proved that the notice said the right thing (including alerting him to the available avenues of relief) and thus had not "establish[ed] the element of a valid suspension." Id. at 1279-80.
The Bishop court characterized Stanek as standing for the proposition that proof of mailing the notice is "an evidentiary prerequisite to proving that a suspension for being an habitual traffic law violator is valid" and then opined that the same must logically be true concerning the contents of the notice. Id. at 1280. It thus declared the HTV adjudication invalid and reversed Bishop's criminal conviction for driving after being adjudicated an HTV. After Bishop, we used similar language about mailing as an "evidentiary prerequisite." See, e.g., Brown, 677 N.E.2d at 519
; Fields v. State, 679 N.E.2d 898, 900 (Ind.1997).
As one might have foreseen, the use of the phrase "evidentiary prerequisite" led to a dispute over whether proof of mailing (or as here, the contents of the mailing) is a matter a party must raise at trial (as in, "I object to the admission of Exhibit One on grounds of inadequate foundation") or whether it is an element of the crimes of driving while suspended or after being named an HTV and thus always available on appeal as part of a sufficiency of the evidence claim. It is this debate the Attorney General has asked us to resolve.
We think this case and others like it may be better resolved in a simpler way. The General Assembly has given us a relatively unadorned set of statutes. More or less, they say "one who drives while suspended commits a crime." Judicial accretions to these statutes have created a labyrinth more complicated than we could have envisioned in Keihn and Burdine.
We thus return to the first principle of Keihn and Burdine. To obtain convictions for driving while suspended or after being adjudicated an habitual violator, the State need prove what the statutes explicitly provide, (1) the act of driving, and (2) a license...
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