Tolen v. Missouri Dept. of Revenue
| Decision Date | 03 April 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. KCD,KCD |
| Citation | 564 S.W.2d 601 |
| Parties | James Reed TOLEN, Appellant, v. MISSOURI DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE, Respondent. 29099. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Lyle E. Spillman, Trenton, for appellant; Holcomb, Spillman & Roberts, Trenton, of counsel.
John D. Ashcroft, Atty. Gen., J. Michael Davis, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.
Before SHANGLER, P. J., WASSERSTROM, J., and MASON, Special Judge.
This appeal comes from the judgment of the circuit court that the revocation of the Tolen driver's license by the Director of Revenue for refusal to submit to the chemical breath test for intoxication was justified under § 564.444, RSMo 1969.
The statute confines the circuit court inquiry to three determinations: whether or not (1) the person was arrested; (2) the officer who made the arrest had reasonable grounds to believe that the person who drove a motor vehicle while in an intoxicated condition; and (3) the person refused to submit to the test. Tolen concedes that he was lawfully arrested and that he refused to submit to the test. He disputes only that the officer had reasonable grounds to believe he drove while intoxicated.
The officers found Tolen, in the early morning, slumped over the wheel of a van asleep. The keys were in the ignition and neither officer could recall whether the engine was turning, but the headlights were off. The van was parked near an intersection at a radical angle across a prohibited area so that a vehicle in a proper lane of travel would be required to cross over the center line to avoid the van. The officers, with difficulty, aroused Tolen and requested his driver's license. He fumbled for five or ten minutes but was unable to comply so they arrested him for failure to produce a valid license. Tolen had told the officers that he had "just driven in" from a nearby nightclub where alcoholic beverages were served. The officers noticed that Tolen was unsteady on his feet, was redolent of alcohol, and that his speech was slurred. These observations prompted them to request that Tolen take the chemical breath test. They warned him of the consequences of failure to submit to the test, and he agreed to it. He was then arrested for driving while intoxicated. Upon arrival at the police station, Tolen produced a valid California license and refused to submit to the breath test. The revocation ensued.
Tolen contends that his statement that he had just driven the van in from the nightclub and did not know he had parked in such a manner was a confession not admissible absent independent proof of the corpus delicti, and that there was not sufficient evidence otherwise to sustain the revocation. This argument rests on a faulty premise: that an administrative proceeding for revocation of driver's license is subject to the rules of evidence in criminal cases.
While in a criminal case the extrajudicial statements of an accused are not admissible to show guilt in the absence of independent direct or circumstantial...
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Riche v. Director of Revenue
...proceeding as set forth in section 302.505 is entirely distinct from criminal punishment of drunken drivers. Tolen v. Missouri Dep't of Revenue, 564 S.W.2d 601, 602 (Mo.App.1978); State v. Byerly, 522 S.W.2d 18, 20 (Mo.App.1975). Unlike the punitive forfeiture proceeding in One 1958 Plymout......
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White v. King
...driver eligibility that determination imposed was not a criminal penalty, by imprisonment or otherwise. Tolen v. Missouri Department of Revenue, 564 S.W.2d 601, 602[2-6] (Mo.App.1978). The grant of a license to drive is an exercise of the police power of the state, and is subject to suspens......
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State v. Warfield, No. 18225
...one civil and one criminal, and the outcome of one proceeding is of no consequence to the other. Tolen v. Missouri Department of Revenue, 564 S.W.2d 601, 602 (Mo.App.1978); Duncan v. Safety Responsibility Unit, Department of Revenue, 550 S.W.2d 619, 622 (Mo.App.1977); State v. Byerly, 522 S......
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Garriott v. Director of Revenue
...of a license because of refusal to submit to a test is not subject to the rules of evidence in a criminal case. Tolen v. Mo. Dep't. of Revenue, 564 S.W.2d 601, 602 (Mo.App.1978). The Southern District has similarly found that the exclusionary rule does not apply to proceedings under section......