Title: Johnson v. State Hearing Examiner's Office

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Johnson v. State Hearing Examiner's Office1992 WY 103838 P.2d 158Case Number: 90-297, 91-15Decided: 08/26/1992Supreme Court of Wyoming
Tamara JOHNSON; Paul 
Radosevich; Jennifer Archibald; and Randy Hampton,

 Appellants 
(Petitioners),

v.

STATE of Wyoming HEARING 
EXAMINER'S OFFICE and the Division of Revenue and Taxation, Appellees 
(Respondents).

Garrett M. McCARTY and 
Donald C. King, 

Petitioners,

v.

Marvin APPLEQUIST, 
Charles Brown III, and Nancy Freudenthal, in their official capacities as 
Commissioners of the State of Wyoming Tax Commission; the State of Wyoming, ex 
rel., the Department of Revenue and Taxation; and the Honorable Stuart S. Healy, 
Justice of the Municipal Court, in and for the City of Sheridan, 
Wyoming,

 Respondents.

Appeal from District 
Courts, Albany County, Arthur T. Hanscum, J., and Sheridan County, James N. 
Wolfe, J.

Tony S. Lopez of 
Zimmers and Lopez, Laramie, and Christopher H. Hawks, Student Intern, for 
appellants in case No. 90-297.

Anthony T. 
Wendtland and Kate M. Fox of Burgess, Davis, Carmichael & Cannon and the 
American Civil Liberties Union, Sheridan, for petitioners in case No. 
91-15.

Joseph B. Meyer, 
Atty. Gen., Mary Guthrie, Senior Asst. Atty. Gen., and Milo M. Vukelich, Asst. 
Atty. Gen., for appellees in case No. 90-297 and respondents in 
91-15.

Before 
THOMAS, CARDINE, URBIGKIT* and GOLDEN, JJ., and BROWN, Retired 
J.

* Chief Justice at time of 
oral argument.

URBIGKIT, Justice.

[¶1]      For our 
constitutional review, these cases present 1990 legislation intended in part to 
enforce state and municipal alcohol nonconsumption provisions for persons under 
majority, age nineteen. In attempting to deter consumption, the statutes provide 
retributory punishment via driver's license suspension where the offense for 
which the punishment is inflicted involves neither driving nor motor vehicle 
use.

[¶2]      In these 
consolidated cases, the appellants claim that Wyo. Stat. §§ 31-7-126 and 
31-7-128(f)(i) and (ii) (Supp. 1990)1 (license suspension statutes) are 
unconstitutional because they violate the equal protection and due process 
provisions of the state and federal constitutions, constitute cruel and unusual 
punishment, and represent constitutionally prohibited special 
legislation.

[¶3]      The appellants 
were less than nineteen years of age when convicted of possession or consumption 
of alcohol, apparently under city ordinance provisions restricting use or 
possession in non-public locations. The municipal courts sent the conviction 
records to the Department of Revenue and Taxation (Department) pursuant to Wyo. 
Stat. § 31-7-126 and the Department then suspended each driver's license for 
ninety days by direction of Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f)(i) and (ii). In these 
appeals, we address issues that the Wyoming license suspension provisions 
violate the state constitution's guarantees regarding equal protection and due 
process, special legislation, cruel and unusual punishment, and double jeopardy. 
To support their arguments, appellants contend, among other claims, that the 
license suspension statutes violate even the minimum scrutiny test of equal 
protection. We agree and hold that Wyo. Stat. §§ 31-7-126 and 31-7-128(f)(i) and 
(ii) have several bases for invalidity by offending the protections guaranteed 
within the state Bill of Rights included in the Wyoming Constitution. State ex 
rel. Wyoming Ass'n of Consulting Engineers and Land Surveyors v. Sullivan, 798 P.2d 826 (Wyo. 1990); Hoem v. State, 756 P.2d 780 (Wyo. 1988).

I. ISSUES

[¶4]      Tamara Johnson 
(Johnson), Paul Radosevich (Radosevich), Jennifer Archibald (Archibald), and 
Randy Hampton (Hampton) state the following claim:

Wyoming Statute § 
31-7-128(f)(i) [and] (ii) [are] unconstitutional because the punishment is 
excessive and disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases and the 
statute discriminates against Petitioners based on their age and the statute 
constitutes special legislation.

[¶5]      Garrett McCarty 
(McCarty) and Donald King (King) raise the following issues:

     A. Do W.S. 31-7-126 
(Cum.Supp. 1990) and W.S. 31-7-128(f) (Cum.Supp. 1990) violate the United States 
Constitution by denying Appellants equal protection of the laws?

     B. Do W.S. 31-7-126 
(Cum.Supp. 1990) and W.S. 31-7-128(f) (Cum.Supp. 1990) violate the Wyoming 
Constitution by denying Appellants equal protection of the laws?

     C. Do W.S. 31-7-126 
(Cum.Supp. 1990) and W.S. 31-7-128(f) (Cum.Supp. 1990) deny Appellants due 
process under the United States Constitution because they are vague?

     D. [Do] W.S. 31-7-126 
(Cum.Supp. 1990) and W.S. 31-7-128(f) (Cum.Supp. 1990) deny Appellants due 
process under the Wyoming Constitution because they are vague?

     E. Do W.S. 31-7-126 
(Cum.Supp. 1990) and W.S. 31-7-128(f) (Cum.Supp. 1990) constitute cruel and 
unusual punishment under the Wyoming Constitution?

II. FACTS

[¶6]      The Wyoming 
legislation separates the people of Wyoming into three groups regarding the use 
or possession of alcohol and other controlled intoxicants. The first group is 
made up of persons who are at least twenty-one years old. These people may 
normally possess and ordinarily use alcohol legally (see, however, Wyo. Stat. § 
12-5-502 (Supp. 1992), "Liability for sale to child, ward or habitual drunkard 
when written notice thereof given"), but not "controlled substances." The second 
group is made up of persons who are either nineteen or twenty years old. These 
people may not use either alcohol or other controlled intoxicants legally, but 
if they are convicted of illegal use or possession, they will not lose their 
driver's licenses.2 The third group is made up of 
persons who are less than nineteen years old. They too may not use any 
intoxicants legally, or at least not in a public place. Wyo. Stat. § 12-6-101(b) 
(Supp. 1992). Unlike the other groups, however, any member within this category 
will have his or her vehicle driving rights suspended if convicted of any 
disassociated offense for violating any law involving either legalized 
alcohol or illegal drugs.3 Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f); Wyo. 
Stat. § 31-7-120(b) (Supp. 1991).

[¶7]      These appeals 
chronicle the current national examination of the use of alcoholic beverages by 
the younger members of our society as a constituent factor within this country's 
crisis of misuse of intoxicants by persons above a minimal level of perhaps age 
twelve and continuing thereafter through all age groups, but not necessarily 
notable for those past the age of 100. First addressed through the pressure of 
national legislation was the age of legal drinking which was raised by the 
Wyoming legislature to age twenty-one following threatened loss of federal 
funding by 1988 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 44, § 1. The 1990 enforcement legislation, 
1990 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 92, § 1, since amended by 1991 Wyo. Sess.Laws ch. 233, 
§ 1 was another effort to bring abstinence to our youth under the age of 
nineteen, but not to be applied to those older than nineteen and under the 
federally mandated minimum age of twenty-one.4

[¶8]      The present 
statutory provisions for these minor in possession or use driver's license 
suspension provisions are derived from acts of the legislature in two separate 
sessions. The initiating law was 1990 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 92 and the source of 
the litigation now pending. That statute was amended by 1991 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 
233 which was enacted to remove the car insurance cost impact factor from the 
suspension provisions. See Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-120(b).

[¶9]      The historical 
derivation of these statutes is not provided by any record presently available 
to this court. Whether the Legislative Service Office has any documentation 
which could be judicially noticed is not presently disclosed as an origin state 
or authoritative basis for the legislation. There are five states found which 
have statutory tie-in provisions of the same general characteristics, but none 
are similar in terms to provide an operational system for revocation such as is 
found in the Wyoming statutes.

[¶10]   The statutes have dual provisions. 
Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-108(b)(vii) (Supp. 1991) provides that if a person under the 
age of nineteen years "has been convicted of any offense regarding the 
possession, delivery, manufacture or use of * * * alcohol within the preceding 
twelve (12) months" they shall not secure the issuance or renewal of any 
driver's license. (Emphasis added.) Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f) provides that any 
person under the age of nineteen years convicted of "violating any law 
regarding the possession, delivery, manufacture or use of * * * alcohol" shall 
result in the Department's suspension of any existent driver's license or 
nonresident operating permit. (Emphasis added.) The mandatory and automatic 
suspension period as action of the administrative agency licensing division is 
ninety days for the first conviction and six months for a second conviction 
within the preceding twelve months. Id.

[¶11]   1990 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 92 became 
effective July 1, 1990 and the following 1991 legislative session provided 
singular and significant reaction. Filed to amend or rescind the law were S.F. 
2, S.F. 32, S.F. 60, S.F. 85, S.F. 100, S.F. 148, and S.F. 160, Dig. of S.J., 
51st Leg., Gen.Sess. (Wyo. 1991). The House bill which generically touched the 
same issue was an age of majority bill, H.B. 118, Dig. of H.J., 51st Leg., 
Gen.Sess. (Wyo. 1991).

[¶12]   Principal legislative direction was 
addressed by S.F. 160 sponsored by state Senator Tom Kinnison of Sheridan 
County, Wyoming. The purpose of the bill was to delete alcohol from coverage 
within the legislation and leave only controlled substances subject to the 
vehicle license suspension provisions. An amendment was added to the bill to 
remove the effects on automobile insurance availability and cost. The bill 
passed in the Senate with a vote of twenty-three to seven and passed in the 
House with a vote of forty-four to twenty. The Governor vetoed the bill and an 
override succeeded in the Senate by a vote of twenty-one to nine but failed in 
the House with a vote of thirty-six to twenty-eight.

[¶13]   With veto override failure of S.F. 
160, S.F. 2 was pulled out from pending joint conference status and restructured 
by Joint Conference Committee No. 2 to serve two purposes. First, to affect its 
initial purpose to increase the reporting time by the original court of an 
alcohol related conviction from two days to ten days and, second, by the late 
stage amendatory process to insulate the fact of the teenager suspension from 
liability insurance carrier knowledge, policy revocation or premium 
escalation.5 Dig. of S.J., 51st Leg., Gen. Sess. 
at 37 (Wyo. 1991).

[¶14]   Within these consolidated appeals, 
we consider six young Wyoming citizens, resident in Sheridan and Laramie, 
Wyoming. Minimal documentation about the incidents or the individuals is 
provided by this record. McCarty, then age eighteen years and eleven months, and 
King, age eighteen years and six months, were arrested in a private residence 
for violation of a Sheridan City Ordinance which prohibited consumption of 
alcoholic beverages by a minor. After arrest, the two young men pled guilty and 
were sentenced for that offense.

[¶15]   The other four individuals, Johnson 
- born July 6, 1972, Radosevich - born August 8, 1972, Archibald - born May 25, 
1972, and Hampton - born November 19, 1971, were all Laramie residents except 
Archibald who lived in Encampment, Wyoming, a rural community approximately 100 
miles from Laramie. These four persons were at least eighteen years of age and 
the record does not indicate a common incident which caused their possession/use 
charges and convictions in the Laramie municipal court and subsequent driver's 
license suspension penalty. Clearly, motor vehicle use was not involved in the 
possession or use ordinance convictions. Although the dates of conviction 
differ, each of the four persons following appearance in municipal court 
received court punishment followed by a driver's license suspension by the 
Department which also required proof of insurance for the three years to be 
authenticated by an S.R. 22 insurance company filing.6 

III. CONSTITUTIONAL 
ISSUES PRESENTED

[¶16]   We first examine state laws in 
light of the Wyoming Constitution because federal constitutional questions are 
avoided where legitimately possible, Employment Sec. Com'n. of Wyoming v. 
Western Gas Processors, Ltd., 786 P.2d 866, 873 (Wyo. 1990), and because state 
constitutions "may be more protective of individual liberties" than the federal 
protections. Cheyenne Airport Bd. v. Rogers, 707 P.2d 717, 726 (Wyo. 1985), 
appeal dismissed 476 U.S. 1110, 106 S. Ct. 1961, 90 L. Ed. 2d 647 (1986). See 
Westmark v. State, 693 P.2d 220 (Wyo. 1984); Washakie County School Dist. No. 
One v. Herschler, 606 P.2d 310 (Wyo.), cert. denied sub nom. Hot Springs County 
School District Number 1 v. Washakie County School District Number 1, 449 U.S. 824, 101 S. Ct. 86, 66 L. Ed. 2d 28 (1980); Nehring v. Russell, 582 P.2d 67, 76-77 
(Wyo. 1978); William J. Brennan, Jr., State Constitutions and the Protection of 
Individual Rights, 90 Harv.L.Rev. 489, 491 (1977); J. Skelly Wright, Commentary, 
In Praise of State Courts: Confessions of a Federal Judge, 11 Hastings 
Const.L.Q. 165, 188 (1984); and Shirley S. Abrahamson, Criminal Law and State 
Constitutions: The Emergence of State Constitutional Law, 63 Tex.L.Rev. 1141 
(1985).7 If state laws violate the Wyoming 
Constitution, then we need not examine their relation to the federal 
constitution.

[¶17]   In making this decision, we are 
also required to apply the "fundamental principle of constitutional 
interpretation that each and every clause within [the Wyoming] constitution has 
been inserted for a useful purpose." Day v. Nelson, 240 Neb. 997, 485 N.W.2d 583, 585-86 (1992) (involving rejected legislative redistricting which did not 
follow county lines "whenever practicable").

A. Equal Protection 
Under the Wyoming Constitution

Equality of 
all.

     In their inherent 
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, all members of the human 
race are equal.

Wyo. Const. art. 
1, § 2 (emphasis added).

Equal political 
rights.

     Since equality 
in the enjoyment of natural and civil rights is only made sure through political 
equality, the laws of this state affecting the political rights and 
privileges of its citizens shall be without distinction of race, color, sex, or 
any circumstance or condition whatsoever other than individual 
incompetency, or unworthiness duly ascertained by a court of competent 
jurisdiction.

Wyo. Const. art. 
1, § 3 (emphasis added).

[¶18]   "Equality, which was forthrightly 
proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, but left out of the original 
United States Constitution under the pressure of the slavery question[8], is emphatically, if not 
repeatedly, set forth in the Wyoming Constitution." Michael J. Horan, The 
Wyoming Constitution: A Centennial Assessment, XXVI Land & Water L.Rev. 13, 
21 (1991) (footnote omitted). See also Wyo. Const. art. 1, §§ 2 and 3; art. 3, § 
27.

[¶19]   While the federal equal protection 
test of strict scrutiny appears designed to protect against the distinctions of 
race and color referred to in the Fifteenth Amendment, the test fails to protect 
equally against distinctions that are not specifically referred to in the 
Fifteenth Amendment. See City of Cleburne, Tex. v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432, 105 S. Ct. 3249, 3254-55, 87 L. Ed. 2d 313 (1985). On the other hand, the 
Wyoming Constitution requires that laws affecting rights and privileges shall be 
without distinction of race, color, sex, or any circumstance or condition 
whatsoever other than individual incompetency. See Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 
3.

[¶20]   Because unambiguous constitutional 
language is to be read "so that each word or phrase has meaning and no part is 
superfluous," Sanchez v. State, 751 P.2d 1300, 1305 (Wyo. 1988), the particular 
protections must be harmonized with other protective language. Wyo. Const. art. 
1, § 3 also calls for the protection of natural rights, State v. Langley, 53 
Wyo. 332, 342, 84 P.2d 767 (1938), and Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 36 requires that 
this court not construe the enumerated equal protection rights to deny or 
disparage other recognizable basic societal rights that could relate to equal 
protection. See Nulle v. Gillette-Campbell County Joint Powers Fire Bd., 797 P.2d 1171, 1173 (Wyo. 1990), protecting the right to associate with one's family 
under, inter alia, Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 36; Western Gas Processors, Ltd., 786 P.2d  at 872 n. 11, right to privacy located in Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 36; Robert 
B. Keiter, An Essay on Wyoming Constitutional Interpretation, XXI Land & 
Water L.Rev. 527, 563 (1986). Applying the rule of construction used in 
Longfellow v. State, 803 P.2d 848, 851 (Wyo. 1990) and Gezzi v. State, 780 P.2d 972, 974 (Wyo. 1989), Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 36 is construed to make the rights 
noted in Article 1 illustrative rather than exhaustive. See Lawrence G. Sager, 
Rights Skepticism and Process-Based Responses, 56 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 417, 441-42 
(1981).

[¶21]   Considering the state 
constitution's particular call for equal protection, the call to recognize basic 
rights, and notion that these particular protections are merely illustrative, 
the Wyoming Constitution is construed to protect people against legal 
discrimination more robustly than does the federal constitution. See Herschler, 
606 P.2d 310 and Nehring, 582 P.2d 67. It is within this understanding that 
proper attention can be provided to the factors involved in consideration of the 
constitutionality of a state law under the "minimum scrutiny" test. See 
Sullivan, 798 P.2d 826; Hoem, 756 P.2d 780; Nehring, 582 P.2d 67; and Mountain 
Fuel Supply Co. v. Emerson, 578 P.2d 1351, 1354-55 (Wyo. 1978). "[Nehring v. 
Russell] provide[s] a basis for arguing that equal protection review under the 
state constitution, even at the lowest traditional scrutiny level, empowers 
courts to scrutinize classification legislation more carefully than they can 
under federal doctrine." Keiter, supra, XXI Land & Water L.Rev. at 553. The 
race-sex based differentiation analysis used for federal constitution 
application involving a strict or heightened scrutiny for any law which attempts 
to distribute benefits or burdens because of race, color, alienage, sex, or 
illegitimacy is inadequate for protection against legislative discrimination 
based on any other characteristic other than individual incompetency, as 
required by the plain meaning of Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 3.

[¶22]   While this court continues to 
require that "one who denies the constitutionality of a statute must establish 
that unconstitutionality," Baskin v. State ex rel. Worker's Compensation Div., 
722 P.2d 151, 155 (Wyo. 1986), we can properly examine equal protection issues 
of the kind now presented based solely on calendar age in consistency with the 
approach long-advocated by Justice Stevens. The dominant value we now import 
into our former "minimum scrutiny" test is the relevance of an assumed 
characteristic of a group to a valid public purpose. "In [Justice Stevens'] 
equal protection lexicon, the requirement of relevance to a valid public 
purpose means that the characteristic or trait or behavior singled out to 
identify a group for legislative benefit or burden must `provide a justification 
for treating [the members of the two classes] differently.'" Note, Justice 
Stevens' Equal Protection Jurisprudence, 100 Harv.L.Rev. 1146, 1154 (1987) 
(emphasis added). See Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S.  at 452-56, 105 S. Ct.  at 
3261-62. "Since his elevation to the Supreme Court in 1975, Associate Justice 
John Paul Stevens has rejected the traditional multitiered method [of equal 
protection] and has articulated a separate vision of equal protection." Note, 
supra, 100 Harv.L.Rev. at 1146. The "City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center 
demonstrates how Justice Stevens' approach avoids the dangers of the [Supreme] 
Court's implicit use of heightened scrutiny, without proliferating `suspect' 
categories or overcomplicating an already complicated analytical structure." Id. 
at 1162 (footnotes omitted).

[¶23]   The Stevens' approach for 
constitutional review asks four questions when confronted with an equal 
protection issue. First, what class is harmed by the legislation and has that 
group been subjected to a "tradition of disfavor" by our laws? Id. at 1146. 
"That a classification disadvantages a traditionally disfavored class signals 
the likelihood that the classification is a product of stereotypical thinking." 
Id. at 1155. Justice Stevens uses this "tradition of disfavor" question "as a 
prophylactic to ensure that he is not confusing commonly shared prejudices with 
relevance." Id. at 1155 n. 47. Second, what is the public purpose that is being 
served by the law? Third, what is the characteristic of the disadvantaged class 
that justifies the disparate treatment? And lastly, how are the characteristics 
used to distinguish people for such disparate treatment relevant to the purpose 
that the challenged laws purportedly intend to serve?

[¶24]   It is against this backdrop that we 
examine the license suspension statutes. Preliminarily, we must identify the 
class at issue. Joseph Tussman and Jacobus ten-Broek, The Equal Protection of 
the Laws, XXXVII Calif.L.Rev. 341, 344 (1949). The contested class is made up of 
those less than nineteen years of age and who are convicted of the illegal 
possession/use of alcohol or controlled substances.

[¶25]   We first look to the harm or 
burdens occasioned by the legislation and examine whether this group has been 
subjected to a tradition of disfavor. Unlike those between the ages of nineteen 
and twenty-one years, this group not only lost their driver's licenses but were 
faced with payment of substantially higher premiums for substantially reduced 
insurance coverage. As well, those under eighteen are "politically powerless" 
since they are deprived of the right to vote and thus unable to make legislators 
directly accountable for such disparate treatment. "[T]he judicial branch of 
government must recognize the interests of the politically powerless and speak 
for those interests in order to defend the concept of justice." Hoem, 756 P.2d  
at 787, Thomas, J., specially concurring. The practical approach and resulting 
conclusion in Hoem of both the majority and special concurrence are completely 
consistent with the disparate treatment constitutional analysis defined by 
Justice Stevens in Cleburne.

[¶26]   Second, what is the governmental 
purpose being served by the classification? While the statutes do not state a 
purported purpose, they are located under Title 31, ch. 7 of the Wyoming 
statutes which deals with driver's licenses. The appellants and the State both 
argue that the purpose is to deter drunk driving. We understand, then, that the 
asserted purpose is related to highway safety.9

[¶27]   Next, what is the characteristic of 
the group that justifies the disparate treatment as compared to those between 
nineteen and twenty-one years of age or compared to those who are older than 
twenty-one years of age? The argument advanced by the State to distinguish 
between those less than nineteen and those less than twenty-one "revolves around 
the degree of independence each class possesses." The State argues those persons 
who are less than nineteen have traditionally been "subject to the rules that 
adults make for them." Aside from the circularity of this argument, the 
assumption that those who have had their driver's licenses suspended are more 
"dependent" than all those who are nineteen or twenty is no more than 
conjecture. Conjecture is not enough. Just as "any claim that the restriction of 
the law bears a reasonable relation to a public interest must rest not on 
conjecture but must be supported by something of substance," Nehring, 582 P.2d  
at 77, the characteristic ascribed to the group to justify the classification 
must also rest on more than conjecture. It is important to the understanding of 
equal protection not to confuse commonly shared prejudices with relevance. In 
light of decisions such as Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 65 S. Ct. 193, 89 L. Ed. 194 (1944), in which Americans with Japanese ancestry were 
stripped of their property, forced from their homes, and concentrated in 
internment camps, American courts should be alert to be available to challenge 
both unfounded assumptions and unjustified prejudices.

[¶28]   How are the characteristics used to 
distinguish people for such disparate treatment relevant to the purpose that the 
challenged laws purportedly intend to serve?10 Even if the State's assumption 
that those less than nineteen are less independent than those who are nineteen 
or twenty years old was accepted by this court, the State would still have to 
show the relevance of the characteristic to the restriction. This additional 
requirement that the record must justify a basis for believing that the 
distinguished group poses a special threat to the government's legitimate 
interest is now required by the United States Supreme Court's current minimum 
scrutiny test. See Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S.  at 446, 105 S. Ct.  at 3258. 
Under this constraint, state courts are no longer free to imagine any set of 
facts which could make the statute appear constitutional. The records in these 
appeals contain no evidence from which this court can infer the relevance 
between suspending the driver's licenses of those less than nineteen years of 
age but not those nineteen or twenty to the purported purpose of improving 
highway safety or deterring the illegal use or possession of 
alcohol.

B. Uniform Operation of 
General Law and Special Legislation Prohibited

Uniform operation of 
general law.

     All laws of a general 
nature shall have a uniform operation.

Wyo. Const. art. 
1, § 34.

Special and local laws 
prohibited.

     The legislature shall 
not pass local or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is 
to say: For [thirty-six enumerated special categories]. In all other cases where 
a general law can be made applicable no special law shall be 
enacted.

Wyo. Const. art. 
3, § 27.

[¶29]   We are faced with a further 
question of a violation of the Wyoming Constitution provided through intrusion 
of Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 34 and art. 3, § 27, enunciating a uniform operation of 
the law structure and precluding special legislation as a Wyoming constitutional 
protection, respectively. Essentially, the challenged legislation is special 
legislation that lacks rational differentiation from persons age nineteen and 
twenty who are also denied the right to use alcoholic beverages constituting a 
similar class and, for that matter, those of any age whose excessive use makes 
their use illegal. This special legislation fits closely within the concepts we 
enunciated in defining the impermissibility of the classifications which were 
found in Hoem, 756 P.2d 780, to fail to meet the constitutional 
test.

[¶30]   We do not ignore the serious 
responsibility vested upon this court in determining that a solemn act of the 
legislature violates the Wyoming Constitution; nor, conversely, can we escape 
responsibility for the primary obligation vested upon the judicial branch of 
government included within our oath of office addressed to all governmental 
officials to support, obey and defend the Constitutions of the United States and 
of the state of Wyoming. When the judiciary abandons its responsibility to the 
constitutional directive, representative government can only continue within a 
short and inevitably terminative time span. Within this recognition, we assume 
for discussion the presumption of constitutionality which embraces all acts of 
the legislature, Hoem, 756 P.2d 780, and acknowledge that countervailing views 
do exist within this country relating to legislation which applies a punitive 
driver's license denial punishment to persons under a given age who join other 
segments of our society in the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

[¶31]   Following this court's decision in 
Hoem in persuasion and perspective, we would perceive noncompliance with these 
constitutional limitations in several specific characteristics. If the minor who 
purchases or uses is to lose driving privileges, the co-violating adult or the 
liquor vendor, Wyo. Stat. § 12-6-101, should similarly be subjected to the loss 
of his driver's license as is provided in the limited sphere of present law in 
using a motor vehicle to furnish or deliver. Wyo. Stat. § 12-6-102 (Supp. 1992). 
The loss of a driver's license for the use of alcohol cannot be distinguishably 
differentiated if illegal for individuals of the ages below nineteen and those 
between nineteen and twenty-one. Likewise, the "illegal" sale pursuant to Wyo. 
Stat. § 12-5-502, where non-approval is alleged, should similarly require 
driver's license suspension to the buyer and seller if a uniform operation of 
the constitutional requirement is to be provided. All illegal acts should expose 
miscreants within the same category of offense to the same kind of punitive 
responsibility and should not differentiate if the person to be punished happens 
to be under nineteen years of age.

[¶32]   Wyoming has a longstanding, 
thoroughly expressed and explicitly applied history in rejection of legislative 
efforts to enact special legislation. The three basic cases which predated 
Sullivan, 798 P.2d 826 and Hoem, 756 P.2d 780, were Phillips v. ABC Builders, 
Inc., 611 P.2d 821 (Wyo. 1980); Nation v. Giant Drug Co., 396 P.2d 431 (Wyo. 
1964); and Bulova Watch Co. v. Zale Jewelry Co. of Cheyenne, 371 P.2d 409 (Wyo. 
1962). Similarly postured in constitutional application were Bell v. Gray, 377 P.2d 924 (Wyo. 1963); Pirie v. Kamps, 68 Wyo. 83, 229 P.2d 927 (1951); and May 
v. City of Laramie, 58 Wyo. 240, 131 P.2d 300 (1942). Somewhere outside the 
mainstream of these legal inquiries, but certainly one of the most interesting 
cases regarding economic legislation in detail of text and comprehensive 
analysis, is Langley, 53 Wyo. 332, 84 P.2d 767.

[¶33]   With regard to an ordinance 
requiring certain businesses to close on Sunday, Nation, 396 P.2d 431; fair 
trade pricing enforcement, Bulova Watch Co., 371 P.2d 409; statute of 
limitations for negligent construction, Phillips, 611 P.2d 821; proper 
classification of cities and towns for statutory differential, May, 58 Wyo. 240, 
131 P.2d 300; size of newspaper for legal ad, Pirie, 68 Wyo. 83, 229 P.2d 927; 
and insurance agent licensing which excludes auto insurance, Bell, 377 P.2d 924, 
each and all should not be considered to be more narrowly drawn than driver's 
license rights of someone under the age of nineteen compared to another person 
age nineteen or twenty when both may have cadged a drink at a private 
party.

[¶34]   In philosophic overview, Chief 
Justice Blume outlined the perspective in his consideration of Langley as a case 
application of a statute relating to selling below cost with an opinion which 
essentially confirmed the statute and, by a split decision, destroyed its 
efficacy for any commercial and criminal application. Langley was not a special 
legislation constitutional examination, but directly considered police power 
limitations which we can now compare to the loss of right to use an automobile 
legally because of attendance at a private party where alcohol was consumed. We 
would do well to recall the gracious sweep and serious philosophy that Chief 
Justice Blume provided for Wyoming law in 1938. 

The legislation now 
before us would probably not cause more than ordinary anxiety, or deserve 
greater consideration than the ordinary constitutional question, were it not for 
the times in which we live, the depression now existing, the unrest now 
prevailing, the mass of social legislation in the last few years, the wonder 
whither we are going, and the frequent queries whether courts are drifting 
merely with the tide or are rendering their decisions with that steadfast 
judgment as is their wont. Before discussing the direct questions involved 
herein, it may be well, even though resulting in the statement of seeming 
platitudes, to cast a hasty glance over the basic historic facts underlying 
constitutional law, and the fundamental principles which should govern it; also 
to make a brief analysis of judicial utterances in that connection, and give our 
own appraisal thereof. That will perhaps dissipate uncertainties and wavering 
doubts, lending us self-certitude in the correctness of our decision, and, we 
hope, affirm the faith and confidence hitherto placed in us by our 
fellow-men.

     The Bill of Rights 
contained in the various constitutions, including our own, has its direct root 
in the ideas of the preceding centuries. Prior to the Renaissance prices of 
merchandise were freely regulated. It was not deemed improper to do so even in 
our colonies, including New York, New Jersey, Maryland and New Hampshire as late 
as the time of the Revolution. 28 Columbia Law Review 712, note. With the 
Renaissance began a new period in human history. Thoughts of liberty and freedom 
took possession of the minds of men, first in the field of religion, then of 
politics, later in the field of economics. It came to be a part of the legal 
philosophy of the times that each man has, as such, and because he is a human 
being, certain natural, inherent and indefeasible rights of which no government 
should, or has the right, to deprive him. One of the chief exponents of that 
doctrine was Rousseaux, writing in his Contract Social in the eighteenth 
century. See Leon Duguit in 31 Harvard Law Review 1-185. That doctrine was 
embodied in the Declaration of Rights of the French National Assembly in 1789 in 
which it is stated that the end of all union of men in society is the 
conservation of their natural and indefeasible rights of man, and in the French 
Constitution of 1791, which states that the legislative power cannot make any 
laws which infringe and interfere with these rights. Idem, 12, 17. The Contract 
Social of Rousseaux had its repercussions and its influence upon all modern 
doctrine of legal and political philosophy and Duguit states that "the principle 
of sovereignty limited by the rights of the individual is still dominant in 
French classical doctrine." Idem 114. Its influence in our own country during 
the 18th century may be noted in the writings of a contemporary. "The end of all 
political associations," writes Paine in his "Rights of Man" (Conclusion Part 1) 
"is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man, and these 
rights are liberty, property, security and resistance of oppression." Liberty of 
production and exchange was proclaimed no less than political liberty. The 
"Wealth of Nations" of Adam Smith, e.g. wielded an enormous influence. To 
illustrate, Thomas Paine, in his work already mentioned, writes that "government 
is no farther necessary than to supply the few cases to which society and 
civilization are not conveniently competent * * *. The more perfect civilization 
is, the less occasion has it for government, because the more does it regulate 
its own affairs, and govern itself * * *. It is but few general laws that 
civilized life requires." Part 2, c. 1. That theory was naturally accentuated by 
reason of the existence and the development of our frontier, and the spirit 
engendered by that development has not lost all of its influence at the present 
time. The doctrine of natural and inherent rights to life, liberty and property 
was announced in the Declaration of Independence, in the constitutions of New 
Hampshire, Virginia, and Pennsylvania in 1776, in the constitution of Vermont in 
1777, in that of Massachusetts in 1780, in that of New Jersey in 1784. Other 
constitutions followed in the same vein. Section 3 of Article 1 of our own 
constitution refers to natural rights of man and section 2 of the same article 
provides that "in their inherent rights to life, liberty and pursuit of 
happiness, all members of the human race are equal." There are those who 
maintain that man has no natural rights; that none can exist except in society, 
and that whatever rights he has, he, accordingly, receives from society. However 
that may be theoretically, natural rights are recognized by our constitution. 
The doctrine is part of the positive law of the land, and section 6 of Article 1 
of our constitution provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty 
or property without due process of law. The article evidently refers to the 
natural and inherent rights otherwise mentioned, and so it becomes apparent, 
particularly in view of the history above outlined, that the framers of the 
constitution meant that the protection thereof is important and that they, 
though loosely defined, should not be unduly invaded.

Langley, 53 Wyo. 
at 340-42, 84 P.2d 767.

[¶35]   Chief Justice Blume then recognized 
that the police power could serve as a limitation on constitutional 
rights, but that the police power could not be unlimited in its effect on those 
constitutional rights since due process is both substantive and 
procedural.

     Nearly every law 
abridges individual freedom of action to a more or less extent. In nearly all 
instances when one is enacted, it gives rise, or may give rise, to a conflict 
between such freedom on the one hand, and the power of the legislature to 
abridge it on the other. The solution of the conflict is judicial in its nature. 
Courts must be, and are, whether willingly or not, the ultimate arbiters as to 
whether or not there is, in a particular case, an unwarranted invasion of the 
guaranteed rights above mentioned. 11 Am.Jur. 1087. They have found that 
solution, - the only one possible or just under the circumstances - in the 
standard of reasonableness. 6 R.C.L. 236; 11 Am. Jur. 1073-1074. That standard 
is indefinite. What is reasonable depends of the facts and circumstances. 11 
Am.Jur. 1074; 6 R.C.L. 236, 239; 19 R.C.L. 807. Paine's thought that, as 
civilization progresses, men will more and more regulate their own affairs has 
not proved itself correct. Altruism has not proceeded that far. History is 
replete with the wreckage of rules of private law. It would be no less than 
surprising, if it were otherwise in the field of public law. As the number of 
people increases, as trade develops, as civic centers become crowded, as society 
becomes more complex, more and more problems arise which must be solved, and the 
freedom of movement and of action of the individuals must be harmonized with 
equal rights for all. That is not always easy to do. Certain rules have been 
laid down to help.

     In order that a 
statute may be valid, the purpose, aim, or end thereof must be within the scope 
or purview of the police power, and in furtherance thereof; the means adopted 
must be reasonable and not arbitrary, and must be appropriate for the 
accomplishment of the end in view; in other words, there must be a substantial 
connection between the purpose in view and the actual provisions of the 
law.

Langley, 53 Wyo. 
at 343-44, 84 P.2d 767.

[¶36]   The test he stated, which is still 
completely appropriate and well-defined, was:

[I]f a statute reasonably 
tends to further such object, and is a fairly appropriate and reasonable means 
for that purpose under all the circumstances, then only the question of the 
wisdom of the law remains, which, in view of the purpose of the existence of the 
legislative department, should be left to it to determine.

Id. at 345, 84 P.2d 767.

[¶37]   Langley was followed by Bulova 
Watch Co., 371 P.2d 409, where the fair trade law was found in violation of the 
Wyoming Constitution as offending the required due process protection and being 
beyond the police power of the state. Nation followed where a pure 
classification special legislation and non-uniform operation analysis required 
the court to void the Sunday no sale ordinance.

[W]e think the conclusion 
inescapable that the ordinance is so permeated with unreasonable, arbitrary, 
capricious, discriminatory, and oppressive provisions that it cannot stand. The 
means adopted are shown to be without substance in accomplishing the end in 
view, as a legitimate exercise of the police power. It is directly violative of 
Art. 1, § 7 of the Constitution of this State, which provides:

"Absolute, arbitrary 
power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a 
republic, not even in the largest majority."

The discriminations, 
under the guise of classification, are violative of Art. 1, § 34 of the 
Constitution of Wyoming, which provides:

"All laws of a general 
nature shall have a uniform operation."

Under all of these 
circumstances we are constrained to hold that the trial court did not err in 
declaring the entire ordinance invalid when tested by constitutional 
safeguards.

Nation, 396 P.2d  
at 437.

[¶38]   In Bell, 377 P.2d 924, this court 
excised the exclusion of classes of insurance agents for being both 
discriminatory and arbitrary and, consequently, unconstitutional and void.11 By deleting the exceptions, the 
court generalized the classification and created a constitutional application 
for the licensing statute. Likewise with regard to cities, this court observed 
that "`a sound and sufficient reason must appear for classification based on 
population, and arbitrary classification based on population cannot be 
sustained.'" May, 58 Wyo. at 257, 131 P.2d  at 306 (quoting McQuillan, Mun. Corp. 
(Rev.Ed.) Sec. 222; citing 37 Am.Jur. 711; 12 Am.Jur. 169 and variant case 
law).

In order to constitute a 
general law, as opposed to a special law, there must be some distinguishing 
peculiarity which gives rise to the necessity for the law as to the designated 
class. A mere classification for the purpose of legislation without regard to 
such necessity is special legislation condemned by the constitution. It is not 
what a law includes that makes it special, but what is excludes. * * * Hence, it 
by no means follows that a law is general because it operates upon all within a 
designated class. It is still special if it applies to all within a class 
without reason appearing why it is not made to apply generally to all. * * * As 
stated in State ex rel. v. Hammer, 42 N.J.L. 435, approved in School City v. 
Hayes, 162 Ind. 193, 203 [70 N.E. 134] and in McGarvey v. Swan, [17 Wyo. 120, 96 
P. 697]: "There must be substantial distinction having a reference to the 
subject matter of the proposed legislation, between the objects or places 
embraced in such legislation, and the objects or places excluded. The marks of 
distinction on which the classification is founded must be such, in the nature 
of things, as will in some reasonable degree, at least, account for or justify 
the restriction of the legislation." McQuillan, supra, Sec. 221, states: "In 
determining whether a law is general or special, the court will look to its 
substance and necessary operation, as well as its form and phraseology. The 
effect of a statute, more than its mere form, or wording or phraseology, must 
determine its character as a public, general, special or local law. In brief, 
the question is, what in the ordinary course of events must necessarily be its 
operation and its effect."

May, 58 Wyo. at 
257-58, 131 P.2d  at 306.

[¶39]   In the terminology of May, we ask 
what difference in alcoholic offense punishment should be applied to the person 
who is not quite nineteen years old compared to the person who is? If the law is 
to provide some consistency and equality, it would be necessary to consider why 
the person who is more than nineteen years old should not be similarly punished, 
since as an adult that person should know better particularly if a college 
social function might be involved. See also Pirie, 68 Wyo. 83, 229 P.2d 927, 
newspaper size requirement of 11" x 18" compared to 12" x 19" to publish a legal 
ad. One inch like one year or one day may create legislation special in scope 
and unconstitutional in application. The comparison follows since one inch in 
the size of newspapers had an operative factor in application to general classes 
of Wyoming published newspapers (and probably one specific newspaper publisher). 
In other words, the newspaper size law was intended to be discriminatory as are 
the driver's license suspension statutes involved in these appeals.

[¶40]   If age constitutes a proper 
function within special legislation concepts, we could equally consider driver's 
license suspension for child support nonpayment or state fees and tax 
delinquency cases involving adults. This subject was considered by an Illinois 
court addressing a driving privilege revocation statute effectuated by a sex 
offense conviction. The Illinois Supreme Court, while recognizing the strong 
presumption of constitutionality within the limited-rational basis standard of 
review, found the provision violated due process and was invalid. That court 
recognized that the stated purpose of any driver's license provision "is to 
ensure that drivers who have demonstrated they are unfit to safely operate 
vehicles are not allowed to drive." People v. Lindner, 127 Ill. 2d 174, 129 
Ill.Dec. 64, 67, 535 N.E.2d 829, 832 (1989). The court then stated the standard 
which is conceptually applicable to our review for this case:

     Having identified the 
public interest at stake, we next examine whether the statute bears a reasonable 
relationship to that interest. We readily conclude that it does not, and as we 
have noted, the State does not argue otherwise. Because a vehicle was not 
involved in any way in the commission of the offense for which defendant was 
convicted, the revocation of his license bears no relationship, much less a 
reasonable one, to the public interest we have identified. The same is true of 
the other offenses enumerated in section 6-205(b)(2).

     Moreover, the method 
used to further the public interest is not reasonable. Keeping off the roads 
drivers who have committed offenses not involving vehicles is not a reasonable 
means of ensuring that the roads are free of drivers who operate vehicles 
unsafely or illegally. To the contrary, the means chosen are arbitrary, not only 
because the offenses specified in section 6-205(b)(2) have no connection to 
motor vehicles, but also because the inclusion of those offenses and no others 
is arbitrary. That is, no reason suggests itself as to why the legislature chose 
the particular offenses enumerated in section 6-205(b)(3) [sic] as opposed to 
other offenses not involving a vehicle.

       For these reasons, we 
hold that the challenged provision is an unreasonable and arbitrary exercise of 
the State's police power in violation of the constitutional guarantee of due 
process and is therefore invalid.

     The State contends 
that under the rational-basis test, we are not limited by the statement of 
purpose found in the statute and may, indeed must, consider any conceivable 
basis for the challenged provision. Further, the State argues, in a somewhat 
circular fashion, as follows. This court's duty is to construe acts of the 
legislature so as to affirm their constitutionality and validity, if that can be 
reasonably done. * * * The State assumes arguendo that revocation of a 
sex offender's license is not related to the offender's fitness to operate a 
vehicle. Given that assumption, if we determine the statute's purpose only by 
reference to its stated purpose, we necessarily will find that the provision is 
unconstitutional. It follows, according to the State, that we must determine 
that the statute has purposes other than safety in order to fulfill our duty to 
uphold its constitutionality.

     The State's argument 
is unpersuasive. In the first place, the rational-basis test, although a 
deferential standard of review, "`is not a toothless one.'" (Mathews v. De 
Castro, 429 U.S. 181, 185, 97 S. Ct. 431, 434, 50 L. Ed. 2d 389, 394 (1976), quoted 
in Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 439, 102 S. Ct. 1148, 1160, 71 L. Ed. 2d 265 (1982), (Blackmun, J., concurring).) Second, our duty to uphold the 
constitutionality of legislative enactments is always subject to the 
qualification that we must do so if that can be reasonably done. It is no less 
our duty to strike down legislation that plainly violates the Constitution. 
Third, we have ascertained the purpose of the statute by considering not only 
the stated purpose - safe operation - but also the legislation as a 
whole.

     But even if we 
consider the purposes identified by the State, the statute fails to pass 
constitutional muster. The first purpose identified by the State is punishment. 
As a preliminary matter, we will assume arguendo that revocation after 
conviction constitutes punishment, notwithstanding our decisions which have held 
that summary suspension of a license before a trial on the merits is an 
administrative function and not a punishment. * * *

     We fail to see, 
however, how identifying the purpose as punishment cures the constitutional 
infirmity. The revocation of defendant's license would then be an additional 
penalty for a criminal offense, and the same rational-basis test would apply. * 
* * The penalty of license revocation bears no relationship to the offense. 
Moreover, if punishment is the purpose, the statute is arbitrary for the same 
reason we identified earlier. There is no rational basis for choosing the 
particular offenses in section 6-205(b)(2), as opposed to other offenses not 
involving a vehicle, to receive the punishment of revocation. If the legislature 
may punish these offenses with revocation, nothing prohibits it from imposing 
that penalty for violating any provision of the Criminal Code, a result that 
would be plainly irrational.

Lindner, 129 
Ill.Dec. at 68-69, 535 N.E.2d  at 833-34 (emphasis in original).

[¶41]   It is from those concepts advanced 
by Lindner that we find equal relevance and appropriateness to the application 
of driving privilege suspension for offenses such as unpaid child support and 
delinquency for payment of state taxes and fees. If we are going to use driver's 
license suspension as a punishment for disassociated offenses, then the right to 
drive in our society becomes contingent upon conduct which has nothing to do 
with the creation of a hazard on the highways or the requirement of the 
individual to have access to a vehicle in order to be a productive citizen and 
maintain gainful employment. The test clearly evidenced from the court's 
decision was the recognition that safety had no relationship to the additional 
penalty created by the infliction of a driver's license suspension. That court 
also quite properly discerned that a potential driver's license suspension would 
hardly serve as a sex offense deterrent; as here, it would unlikely stop 
fraternity or sorority private parties or high school get-togethers in private 
homes.

[¶42]   It is recognized that 
countervailing current authority can be found approving in some context minor in 
possession/use conviction revocations of driving privileges. The case cited in 
briefing, although neither the strongest nor the closest in statutory 
application, is the intermediate appellate case in Pennsylvania of Com. v. 
Strunk, 400 Pa. Super. 25, 582 A.2d 1326 (1990). The majority was not burdened 
in opinion review with constitutional limitations on special legislation and 
found no requirement that the punishment inflicted for a criminal offense 
related to the offense of conviction. The court would not find "that this 
penalty violates the proscription against cruel and unusual punishment by 
imposing a penalty that is grossly disproportionate to the underlying 
offense." Id. 582 A.2d  at 1332-33 (emphasis in original). In assuming some 
unproved relationship between drinking under age and highway fatalities, this 
assumed relationship gave a reasonable cogency to the legislative enactment 
justifying affirmation. The double jeopardy issue was avoided since the court 
suspended the license as a punishment within the sentence entered and no 
independent administrative agency action was required.

[¶43]   We would agree that the dissent won 
the argument in protective constitutional concepts and logic in the concept that 
the decision was "unpersuasive, as both incomplete on the law and dangerous as a 
matter of precedent." Strunk, 582 A.2d  at 1333, Popovich, J., dissenting. The 
dissent would require a "`rational relationship' or nexus between the end and 
the means so as not to make selection of the particular means entirely arbitrary 
as a matter of penology." Id. We agree with that comment and also with the 
further thought expressed:

     There exists within 
our penal system a rationality such that a fine or penalty should reflect the 
gravity or moral reproachability of a particular crime. One might wonder, and 
rightly so, why the legislature singled out underage drinking as deserving of a 
truly "special" penalty, whereas other offenses committed by juveniles such as 
vandalism, shoplifting, disorderly conduct, loitering, etc., receive a much 
different penalty. Indeed, if the focus is on the intractable nature of juvenile 
deterrence, then removal of one's license might serve the much-needed deterrent 
function with respect to each of these crimes, yet there appears no rational 
reason to afford one crime, but not the other, separate treatment. Perhaps most 
troublesome is that when selection of a penalty is arbitrary, the public, as 
well as the individual offender, is more prone to perceive the penal system as 
arbitrary in punishing for offenses not committed. Moreover, the offense of 
driving while intoxicated already commands a significant penalty which 
presumably serves a considerable deterrent function. Thus, without an indication 
that the crime of underage drinking was accompanied by the operation of a motor 
vehicle, the mere fact that drinking is associated with driving in the abstract 
will not suffice to supply the requisite rationality.

* * * * * *

     Instantly, while the 
majority found a "deterrent" interest supported by the penalty of license 
suspension, I am hardpressed to fathom a penalty which, assuming the appropriate 
severity, does not serve a similar function. With this as the standard, I see no 
standard at all. Moreover, our task, contrary to the majority's interpretation, 
is not to ignore the express relationship offered by the legislature and 
immediately hypothesize as to possible rational relationships. A plain 
interpretation of the statute confirms a relationship as between the offense of 
underage possession of brewed beverages and the penalty of, inter alia, 
suspension of operator's privileges.

Id. at 1334 
(footnote omitted). It was further stated:

Our task must be to 
ascertain whether the relationship was reached in an arbitrary manner. To be 
sure, ignoring the rationality of the relationship might be to further to some 
degree a serious problem with juvenile crime. But without a coherent limiting 
principle, the doctrine * * * has much graver implications beyond the facts at 
bar. I fear * * * judicial tolerance of arbitrary forms of penology and thereby 
pav[ing] the way for analogous laws.

3 - The test of "rational 
relationship" as defined by the "deterrence" rationale is not logically cabined 
solely to the offense of underage drinking or offenses committed by minors. 
Consider a legislature desirous of deterring juvenile vandalism. Under today's 
rationale, and owing to the intractable nature of juvenile deterrence, the 
legislature might rationally consider suspension of operator's privileges as an 
effective deterrent. Following like reasoning, the legislature might penalize 
public drunkenness or disorderly conduct or loitering with suspension of 
operator's privileges. To be sure, these are but a few examples. Troublesome 
with the "deterrence" rationale is that its limits are largely defined by the 
ingenuity of legislators, not by the test of rationale relationship under the 
substantive component to the Due Process Clause.

Id. at 1334-35 
(footnote included).

[¶44]   The basic authority used to 
validate driver's license suspension punishment for disassociated offenses 
developed in juvenile controlled substance conviction cases. Matter of Maricopa 
County, Juvenile Action No. JV-114428, 160 Ariz. 90, 770 P.2d 394 (1989); State 
v. Smith, 58 N.J. 202, 276 A.2d 369 (1971). Although we do not elect to 
generally follow the equal protection/special legislation/due process/double 
jeopardy concepts of those cases, there is a clear difference in use or 
possession of a controlled substance offense, which involves a substance that is 
illegal at any age, as comparable to the use of alcohol which is proscribed in 
these appeals only by age and circumstance and is in our society otherwise legal 
and customary.12 

[¶45]   The difference between controlled 
substances and alcohol usage is found in the subclassification where here, the 
use of alcohol is improper equivalently to age twenty-one, but only those 
persons under the age of nineteen are subject to the additional punitive 
sanction. In the drug cases, a subclassification of the suspect class by age 
alone is not created. The ambivalence of the difference between ages nineteen 
and twenty where usage is equally illegal to age twenty-one was not created by 
the controlled substance enactments. It is also too obvious to require extended 
reference to recognize that even by including an additional punishment, 
commencing with the date of the New Jersey enactment, circa 1970, the use of 
controlled substances by both adults and the under age, did not disappear. 
Another significant difference also exists since, by both the Arizona and New 
Jersey statutes, suspension remained a judicial function entered conjunctively 
with other punishment as one sentence and not subsequently inflicted as 
additional retribution by action of an administrative agency.13

[¶46]   We also decline to follow the 
direction demonstrated in analysis of the Oregon statutes, State v. Day, 84 Or. 
App. 291, 733 P.2d 937 (1987); State ex rel. Juvenile Dept. of Columbia County 
v. White, 83 Or. App. 225, 730 P.2d 1279 (1986), which confined its decision to 
a suspect analysis of a proscribed class age thirteen through seventeen - which 
turned out to be eighteen by the White decision. The Oregon case discussion was 
confined to the subject classification and disproportion of penalty which 
concepts in pari materia we do not follow in resolution here.

[¶47]   The Arkansas law which is 
differently phrased, see Carney v. State, 305 Ark. 431, 808 S.W.2d 755 (1991), 
would not reach application here because it is clearly confined to state 
statutory violation of the alcohol or controlled substance offense and, 
conversely, provides for a hardship exception. That law triggers application as 
part of the sentence through order of the court to the license bureau until the 
minor reaches eighteen years of age or twelve months, whichever period is 
longer. The Arkansas review embraced only the age classification and did not 
consider as cited authority the disproportion of the punishment for a 
disassociated offense.14 Similar statutes are found for 
Utah and Colorado. Utah Code Ann. § 78-3a-39.5 (1992); Colo. Rev. Stat. § 
42-2-122(5)(a) (Supp. 1991).

C. Excessive Fine and 
Cruel and Unusual Punishment Preclusion

Bail; cruel and unusual 
punishment.

     All persons shall be 
bailable by sufficient sureties, except for capital offenses when the proof is 
evident or the presumption great. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor 
excessive fines imposed, nor shall cruel or unusual punishment be 
inflicted.

Wyo. Const. art. 
1, § 14 (emphasis added).

Penal code to be 
humane.

The penal code shall be 
framed on the humane principles of reformation and prevention.

Wyo. Const. art. 
1, § 15.

[¶48]   We are also persuaded that the 
double character of punishment inflicted sequentially upon this limited category 
of persons under age nineteen fails in initial compliance with the first 
restriction addressed in Wyo. Const. art. 1 and also impermissible under the 
Solem Eighth Amendment limitation on proportionality.15 Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 103 S. Ct. 3001, 77 L. Ed. 2d 637 (1983).

[¶49]   Overtly for those philosophers of 
the law who have decided that the motto is "do unto others, but do not do it to 
yourself," there is a far easier way to bring prohibition back to this segment 
of our society which would be to enforce the restriction on everyone, including 
adults. This could be done with the penalty more appropriately severe for the 
adult, not less, whose conduct creates the society within which alcohol and 
controlled substances are available to and abused by both the adult and the 
minor. Nations with the governmental structure of totalitarianism and religious 
direction to define appropriateness of individual conduct, such as Saudi Arabia, 
demonstrate that prohibition can be enforced if it is universally applied with a 
sufficiently severe punishment - loss of arm or leg or perhaps one's 
head.

[¶50]   Addressing duplicative sequential 
proportionality, we have punishment for the minor when first enforced by 
judicial action and a sequential second punishment enacted by the legislature 
and enforced by the executive branch to be completely supplementary and totally 
different than the responsibility if the individual involved is nineteen or 
older.

[¶51]   Appellants thoughtfully address 
this constitutional violation:

     This harsh and 
disproportionate punishment, even when considered with the deference due the 
legislature, cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. The court in Oakley v. 
State, 715 P.2d 1374 (Wyo. 1986), stated the Eighth Amendment proportionality 
analysis applied by the Supreme Court in Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 103 S. Ct. 3001, 77 L. Ed. 2d 637 (1983) as follows:

In sum, a court's 
proportionality analysis under the Eighth Amendment should be guided   by objective criteria, including 
(i) the gravity of the offense and the harshness of the penalty; (ii) the 
sentences imposed on other criminals in the same jurisdiction; and (iii) the 
sentences imposed for commission of the same crime in other 
jurisdictions.

Oakley, 715 P.2d  
at 1376-77 (quoting Solem, 463 U.S.  at 292, 103 S.Ct. at 3010).

     The harshness of the 
penalty far exceeds the gravity of the offense in this case; evidence of that is 
found in the comparison of the penalty visited upon those under nineteen and the 
far lighter penalty which nineteen and twenty year olds receive for the same 
offense. A punishment for violation of the Sheridan City Ordinance that is 
considered commensurate to the offense for nineteen and twenty year olds, is but 
a preamble if the offender is under nineteen. Yet if the penalty for nineteen 
and twenty year olds is appropriate to the gravity of the offense, then the 
penalty for those under nineteen is far out of proportion.

The difficult 
issues implicit in disproportionate sentencing faced by this court in the Wright 
cases demonstrate a recognition constitutionally that sentencing should make 
sense explicitly within societal responsibility and for retributory infliction 
to meet the criteria of due process, equal protection and the reformation and 
prevention criteria of Wyo. Const. art. 1, §§ 14 and 15. Wright v. State, 707 P.2d 153 (Wyo. 1985); Wright v. State, 670 P.2d 1090 (Wyo. 1983). See also State 
v. Bartlett, 830 P.2d 823 (Ariz. 1992).

D. Double 
Jeopardy

Self-incrimination; 
jeopardy.

     No person shall be 
compelled to testify against himself in any criminal case, nor shall any 
person be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense.

Wyo. Const. art. 
1, § 11 (emphasis added).

[¶52]   Other states provide a somewhat 
comparable result as that achieved in these Wyoming cases - however, they do so 
within a significantly different statutory framework. For the most part, these 
other states16 include the threat of driver's 
license suspension as a discretionary and judicially-imposed penalty for 
a minor in possession offense.

[¶53]   In contrast under the present 
Wyoming structure, judicial involvement ends with sentencing after a city 
ordinance or state misdemeanor violation under the alcohol control code. 
Driver's license suspension is then imposed by administrative action pursuant to 
Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f) as an added punishment for the previous conviction. 
That approach directly raises the double jeopardy punishment confinement of U.S. 
Const. amend. V and Wyo.Const. art. 1, § 11. This concept comes here generally 
not briefed by the litigants and apparently not considered by the legislature in 
enactment.

[¶54]   The question is not novel since 
directly addressed by the United States Supreme Court in United States v. 
Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 109 S. Ct. 1892, 104 L. Ed. 2d 487 (1989). In Halper, Justice 
Blackmun addressed the issue "under what circumstances a civil penalty may 
constitute `punishment' for the purposes of double jeopardy analysis." Id. at 
436, 109 S. Ct.  at 1895. In analysis of the three distinct abuses addressed by 
the Double Jeopardy Clause, the third - multiple punishments for the same 
offense - was at issue in Halper. Justice Blackmun recognized "[t]he third of 
these protections - the one at issue here - has deep roots in our history and 
jurisprudence." Id. at 440, 109 S. Ct.  at 1897. He recognized this to be a 
settled issue in American constitutional law. In Halper, the defendant had been 
judicially convicted, punished by a jail term and fined $5,000.00. The further 
question was whether a False Claims Act civil liability of $130,000.00 could be 
added. The inquiry was addressed:

     We turn, finally, to 
the unresolved question implicit in our cases: whether and under what 
circumstances a civil penalty may constitute punishment for the purpose of the 
Double Jeopardy Clause.

Id. at 446, 109 S. Ct.  at 1900. The court determined that the assessment of labels "criminal" or 
"civil" was not of paramount importance. Id. at 447, 109 S. Ct.  at 1901. Rather, 
the inquiry addressed whether the civil proceedings had punitive as well as 
remedial goals.

We therefore hold that 
under the Double Jeopardy Clause a defendant who already has been punished in a 
criminal prosecution may not be subjected to an additional civil sanction to the 
extent that the second sanction may not fairly be characterized as remedial, but 
only as a deterrent or retribution.

Id. at 448-49, 
109 S. Ct.  at 1901-02. Clearly, the basis of the minor in possession/use license 
suspension was driven by deterrent and retribution concepts in legislative 
enactment. It was certainly not intended to be remedial in repaying an injured 
victim.

[¶55]   In Wyoming, proceedings to suspend 
or revoke a driver's license are civil and not criminal in nature. Moreno v. 
State, Dept. of Revenue and Taxation, 775 P.2d 497 (Wyo. 1989); State, Dept. of 
Revenue and Taxation v. Hull, 751 P.2d 351, 356 (Wyo. 1988). Here, those civil 
proceedings are sequentially applied to provide an additional punishment. That 
result is rejected by Halper. Furthermore, for this purpose, the legislature did 
not establish the criminal offense; it only created the crime by enunciating the 
punishment. State v. A.H. Read Co., 33 Wyo. 387, 240 P. 208 (1925). In the 
immediate cases presented, the city council creates the crime and the 
administrative agency, as a state punishment, applies the subsequent deterrent 
which would be beyond the authority of the municipality to separately inflict. 
Nowhere in state statutes are the charged activities of these specific 
appellants declared to be in violation of a legislatively enacted criminal 
offense. This punishment is only applied after the individual has been sentenced 
for violation of a city ordinance. Consequently, this statutory system magnifies 
the assessed punishment otherwise available to the city court by introduction of 
the state administrative agency for further sanction. State ex rel. Motor 
Vehicle Div. v. Holtz, 674 P.2d 732 (Wyo. 1983). "`A constitution is not to be 
made to mean one thing at one time and another at some subsequent time when the 
circumstances may have so changed as perhaps to make a different rule seem 
desirable.'" Rasmussen v. Baker, 7 Wyo. 117, 131-32, 50 P. 819, 822 (1897) 
(quoting Cooley's Const. Lim., 54).

[¶56]   Current indexing resources reveal 
only one Halper case which provides analysis of some relevance to these cases. 
In Ellis v. Pierce, 230 Cal. App. 3d 1557, 282 Cal. Rptr. 93 (1991), Halper was 
raised where the driver was convicted of driving under the influence and then 
subjected to the effects of a refusal to take a blood-alcohol test. The 
California court found that the duality of suspension result was not deterrent 
or retribution, but rather considered to be sui generis in the character of 
disbarment of an attorney after conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude 
by providing a protection to the public in keeping an unfit lawyer from 
practicing law. The relevance of this case is the connection of refusal to take 
the test to proof and circumstances involved in an offense involving driving 
under the influence. However, since no driving offense is involved in these 
present appeals, a comparability factor cannot be found. An analogous double 
jeopardy analysis is found where first, a civil fine is assessed and is then 
followed by criminal contempt. Since both proceedings were punitive, the 
separate assessment of punishment violated double jeopardy. Small v. Com., 12 
Va. App. 314, 398 S.E.2d 98 (1990).

[¶57]   Within the Wyoming statutory 
system, there is no judicial sentencing action or discretion involved in these 
minor/alcohol conviction cases which applies as part of the punishment - license 
suspension. The second sequence punitive result of the minor in possession/use 
or direct conviction is a post-sentencing administrative agency action to 
provide successive punishment. We find this result where the punishment is not 
determined and entered by the court to invade the prohibition of double jeopardy 
under Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 11 and also, although this decision is made under 
state law, the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution under Halper, 
490 U.S. 435, 109 S. Ct. 1892. See likewise the extension of punishment to a 
disassociated deterrent where a loss of citizenship was involved as a case that 
is not totally unlike the lesser city punishment and the significant 
state-inflicted deterrent involved here, Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 78 S. Ct. 590, 2 L. Ed. 2d 630 (1958).17

IV. 
CONCLUSION

[¶58]   Few enactments passed in current 
time by the Wyoming legislature directly affect more persons than driver's 
license suspension as a tie-in punishment for violation of a city ordinance or 
state law preclusion against the use or possession of alcoholic beverages by a 
person under the age of nineteen. In determining that the centrality and 
penumbra of protections provided by the Wyoming Constitution, precluding both 
enactment of special legislation and creation of double jeopardy while 
guaranteeing equal protection and fair and appropriate sentences for punishment 
and prevention of criminal offenses, extend to a motor vehicle driver's license 
suspension, we declare Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f) and the associated statutory 
provisions of Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-126 in violation of the Wyoming 
Constitution.

[¶59]   The certified questions advanced by 
McCarty and King, Docket No. 91-15, are consequently answered:

a. Do W.S. 31-7-126 and 
W.S. 31-7-128(f) deprive Plaintiffs of equal protection or due process in 
violation of the Wyoming Constitution?

ANSWER: 
YES.

b. Do W.S. 31-7-126 and 
W.S. 31-7-128(f) deprive Plaintiffs of equal protection or due process in 
violation of the United States Constitution?

ANSWER: NOT 
ANSWERED.

c. Do W.S. 31-7-126 and 
W.S. 31-7-128(f) inflict cruel and unusual punishment upon Plaintiffs in 
violation of the Wyoming Constitution?

ANSWER: 
YES.

The license suspension 
decisions of the Chief Hearing Examiner from which appeal is taken regarding 
Johnson, Radosevich, Archibald and Hampton, Docket No. 90-297, are 
reversed.

[¶60]   The cases are remanded to the 
administrative agency for further proceeding in compliance herewith. Certified 
questions a and c of Docket No. 91-15 are answered in the affirmative and the 
license suspension decisions in Docket No. 90-297 are reversed and 
remanded.

THOMAS, Justice, concurring 
specially.

[¶61]   I agree that the challenged 
statutory scheme must be abrogated as unconstitutional under the requirements of 
our equal protection of the law provision in the State constitution. Art. 1, § 
34, Wyo. Const. I join in the opinion of the court insofar as it so 
holds.

[¶62]   Beyond that holding, the opinion of 
the court is too far ranging in philosophy, jurisprudence, and legal theories. I 
cannot subscribe to all of concepts and dicta incorporated therein, and 
consequently I join only in the result reached of declaring the statutes 
unconstitutional.

CARDINE, Justice, specially 
concurring.

[¶63]   I concur in the result and in that 
part of the court's opinion holding that W.S. 31-7-126 (Cum.Supp. 1990) and 
31-7-128(f) (Cum. Supp. 1990) violate the equal protection and due process 
clauses found in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 
Art. 1, §§ 2 and 6 of the Wyoming Constitution.

[¶64]   I do not agree that Hoem v. State, 
756 P.2d 780 (Wyo. 1988), is "completely consistent" with Justice Stevens' 
analysis in Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432, 451, 105 S. Ct. 3249, 3260, 87 L. Ed. 2d 313 (1985) (Stevens, J., concurring), or that it is 
authority for the decision in this case. If it were so, I would have affirmed. 
Hoem involved no statutory criminal activity, no license revocation, no enhanced 
penalty for violation of a criminal law, and a reasonable classification not 
based on age alone. Hoem was a case in which legislation was enacted to deal 
with a perceived serious problem in the medical negligence area. The statutes 
adopted had a valid purpose; the means adopted for accomplishing that purpose 
was reasonable; and there was substantial connection between the purpose and the 
provisions of the statutes creating the medical review panel. No rights were 
lost, no real penalty imposed. Similar statutes had been held constitutional by 
other states (more than 22). Three states had held dissimilar statutes 
unconstitutional. See Hoem, 756 P.2d  at 787 (Cardine, J., 
dissenting).

[¶65]   The Medical Review Panel Act was 
not unlike the procedure established for bringing a sexual harassment suit under 
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Before suit is filed, a charge must 
be filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which has six months 
to investigate, conciliate and attempt to resolve the conflict. The Act simply 
did not create a constitutionally objectionable scheme such as the one we 
address here.

[¶66]   Now, to the case at hand. The 
driver's licenses of appellants (minors under the age of 19 years) were revoked 
because they possessed alcoholic beverages. It is a violation of W.S. 12-6-101 
for a minor under the age of 19 years to possess alcoholic beverages (subject to 
an employment or working exception). It is a violation of W.S. 12-6-101 for a 
minor under the age of 21 years to possess alcoholic beverages (subject to an 
employment or working exception). It is lawful for a person over the age of 21 
years to possess an alcoholic beverage.

(a) A person under the 
age of 19 years who possesses an alcoholic beverage may be fined $750, sentenced 
to six months in county jail, and his driver's license is 
revoked.

(b) A person over the age 
of 19 years and under 21 years who possesses an alcoholic beverage may be fined 
$750 and sentenced to six months in county jail.

(c) A person over the age 
of 21 years who possesses an alcoholic beverage is subject to no fine or penalty 
at all.

All persons who 
engage in this same activity are divided into three classifications. The classes 
are separated by age only. The age difference between the most penalized and the 
least penalized class is two years and one day. Yet we were informed at argument 
that the revocation of the driver's licenses of persons under 19 years of age 
was for highway safety. The greatest incidence of alcohol related driving 
accidents is in the 23-year-old age group, which is the least penalized class. 
The classification, therefore, is arbitrary. The statutes providing for 
revocation of driver's licenses of persons under 19 years of age for possession 
of alcoholic beverages are unconstitutional because they are not a reasonable 
means to accomplish a valid public purpose; they do not operate equally, 
uniformly, and fairly; and they are arbitrary in classification and 
penalty.

BROWN, Justice (Retired), 
dissenting.

[¶67]   The majority opinion is carefully 
and skillfully crafted. If the opinion were developed in a vacuum as an academic 
exercise, I could join same.

[¶68]   Declaring Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-126 
(Supp. 1990) and Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f) (Supp. 1990) unconstitutional will 
result in more people under the age of twenty-one who have a love affair with 
alcohol driving on the roads and highways. Increased drunken driving will result 
in more fatalities and injuries. Declaring Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-126 and Wyo. Stat. 
§ 31-7-128(f) unconstitutional will be a boon to those on a waiting list for an 
organ transplant; however, for appellants, relatives and friends, it is a 
pyrrhic victory.

[¶69]   In an article, Rosenthal, The 
Minimum Drinking Age for Young People, 92 Dick. L.Rev. 649, 654-60 (1987-88) 
(footnotes omitted), sobering statistics are set out:

[T]he great majority of 
the soundly-designed studies found that raising the drinking age decreased fatal 
accidents. * * *

* * * * * 
*

The number of accidents 
involving drunken driving is quite high. These accidents account for more than 
one-half of the 45,000 deaths in the United States caused by traffic accidents 
each year. The effect of mixing driving and alcohol is even stronger on the 
young. Alcohol-related traffic deaths are the number one killer of fifteen to 
twenty-four-year olds, and they account for approximately fifty percent of all 
teenage deaths. In addition, sixteen- to twenty-four-year old drivers represent 
twenty percent of licensed drivers in the United States and less than twenty 
percent of total miles driven, yet they account for forty-two percent of all 
fatal alcohol-related accidents. Further, because of drunken driving, the life 
expectancy of teenagers has remained constant for the last twenty years even 
though the life expectancy of every other age group has improved during this 
period. Young drivers who drink are highly dangerous to themselves, as well as 
to everyone else.

One interesting study 
measured the fatal auto accidents involving alcohol for each 100,000,000 vehicle 
miles travelled. Teenage drivers had the highest alcohol-involved fatal accident 
rate of any age group - a rate of approximately 4.5 per 100,000,000 vehicle 
miles compared to 3.38 for twenty-year olds, 4.08 for twenty-one-year olds, 3.10 
for twenty-two to twenty-four-year-olds and 1.50 for twenty-five to 
forty-four-year olds. The rates for persons in their early twenties, while less 
than those for teenagers, are still quite substantial and strongly implicate the 
involvement of drivers in this group in fatal accidents involving alcohol. The 
study showed that eighteen-, nineteen-, and twenty-year olds had 
alcohol-involvement fatal-accident rates very close to the rates of the sixteen- 
and seventeen-year olds. * * *

* * * * * *

* * * Raising the minimum 
drinking age had a positive effect in ten of the thirteen states. The 
investigators estimated that fatal crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers 
were reduced by thirteen percent. They also estimated that raising the minimum 
drinking age to twenty-one nationally would save approximately 550 lives each 
year.

     A study conducted by 
the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety measured the effects of raising the 
minimum drinking age in the twenty-six states that had done so between 1975 and 
1984. The researchers estimated that, as a result of the increasing drinking 
age, "nighttime driver fatal crash involvements" decreased by thirteen 
percent.

     Another study examined 
nine states that raised the minimum drinking age between September 1, 1976, and 
January 1, 1980. It estimated that "each year there could be about 730 fewer 
young drivers involved in nighttime fatal crashes if in all states the drinking 
age for all alcoholic beverages was raised to twenty-one. It also estimated that 
any state which raises its minimum drinking age "can expect the nighttime fatal 
crashes of drivers of the affected age groups to drop by about twenty-eight 
percent.

* * * * * *

     * * * When the concern 
is something as important as death or injury by drunken-driving, society should 
not afford autonomy to eighteen- to twenty-year olds, but should rather be more 
paternalistic. The alcohol-crash-record of persons in this age group is 
relatively high compared to other age groups. Its members have not shown that 
they can be treated like adults in alcohol-related decisions and they have not 
shown themselves to be responsible.

[¶70]   Professor Rosenthal's footnotes 
reference studies to support each statistic quoted and his article shows that 
the effect of raising the drinking age takes more drunken drivers off the 
highways. Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-126 and Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f) were designed to 
keep certain young drivers who keep company with John Barleycorn off the highway 
and, thus, reduce fatalities and injuries. The fallout of the majority opinion 
will be to put more young drunks on the highway.

[¶71]   In determining whether the 
challenged statutes are constitutional, certain general principles must be given 
effect. Statutes are presumed to be constitutional. Baskin v. State ex rel. 
Worker's Compensation Division, 722 P.2d 151, 156 (Wyo. 1986). The burden is on 
whoever attacks constitutionality to show beyond a reasonable doubt that a 
statute is unconstitutional. O'Brien v. State, 711 P.2d 1144, 1147 (Wyo. 1986). 
When courts can uphold the validity of a statute and further the legislative 
intent in enacting the measure, they are bound to do so. In re Application for 
Certificate of Need by HCA Health Services of Wyoming, Inc., 689 P.2d 108, 114 
(Wyo. 1984). Any reasonable doubts are to be resolved by upholding the statute 
if possible. Armijo v. State, 678 P.2d 864, 867 (Wyo. 1984).

[¶72]   When a statute is challenged on 
equal protection grounds, as in this case, the burden is upon the party alleging 
denial of equal protection to show that it has been subjected to disparate 
treatment resulting in denial of equal protection. United States Steel 
Corporation v. Wyoming Environmental Quality Council, 575 P.2d 749, 754 (Wyo. 
1978). "Equal protection does not require exact equality. Only discrimination 
which is arbitrary and invidious is prohibited." Bell v. State, 693 P.2d 769, 
771 (Wyo. 1985).

[¶73]   Appellants here have raised claims 
under both the United States and Wyoming Constitutions. This court has held 
these respective equal protection provisions are equivalents. Washakie County 
School Dist. No. One v. Herschler, 606 P.2d 310, 332 (Wyo. 1980); O'Brien, 711 P.2d  at 1147.

[¶74]   Equal protection issues are 
determined by applying one of two levels of judicial scrutiny. If an ordinary 
interest is involved, the court will determine if there is a rational 
relationship between the classification and a legitimate state objective. If a 
fundamental interest is affected, the classification will be subjected to a 
close scrutiny to determine if it is necessary to achieve a compelling state 
interest. If the legislature had some arguable basis for choosing the end and 
the means chosen, then the courts will sustain the law. O'Brien, 711 P.2d  at 
1147. The inquiry here asks what type of interest is affected by the 
legislation. It is conceded by appellants that no fundamental right is affected. 
Therefore, the statutes:

need only bear a 
reasonable relation to the legislature's legitimate interest in preserving the 
economic and social stability of the state. Such a standard is highly 
deferential to the constitutionality of the statute. That is, if any conceivable 
basis exists which will reasonably, although arguably, support the enactment, we 
will assume that the legislature acted in a non-arbitrary and rational manner, 
and will hold the statute to be constitutional. Hoem v. State, 756 P.2d 780, 
782-83 (Wyo. 1988); Cheyenne Airport Board v. Rogers, 707 P.2d [717,] at 727 
[(Wyo. 1985)]; Mountain Fuel Supply Co. v. Emerson, 578 P.2d 1351, 1355 (Wyo. 
1978).

White v. State, 
784 P.2d 1313, 1316 (Wyo. 1989). Simply stated: Is the classification chosen by 
the legislature rationally related to achieving a legitimate governmental 
interest?

[¶75]   The equal protection provision of 
the constitutions, "guarantees that similar individuals will be dealt with in a 
similar manner by the government." Nowak, Rotunda, Young, Constitutional Law, 
2nd Ed. Ch. 16, § 1 at 586 (West 1983).

If the government 
classification relates to a proper governmental purpose, then the classification 
* * * does not violate the guarantee when it distinguishes persons as 
"dissimilar" upon some permissible basis in order to advance the legitimate 
interests of society.

Id. at 
586-87.

[¶76]   A court must consider three factors 
in determining equal protection challenges: (1) Does a class exist? (2) What is 
the governmental purpose of the legislation at issue? (3) Is the legislation 
rationally related to the objective? The state agrees that the Act creates a 
class comprised of licensed drivers under the age of nineteen. Next, the court 
must inquire as to what is the purpose of the challenged legislation. It is not 
disputed that the state has a valid interest in generally protecting and 
improving the safety of Wyoming roads and highways, as well as deterring the 
illegal possession of alcohol. The third equal protection inquiry is whether the 
statutes are rationally related to the objective. In this case the objective is 
to deter and punish underage drinking and drug use. The question is whether 
suspending the driver's license of one convicted of an alcohol or drug related 
offense is rationally related to deterring and punishing underage alcohol and 
substance abuse.

[¶77]   In the circumstance here the 
penalty applies even if no motor vehicle is involved with the offense. 
Appellants contend, therefore, that the penalty is not related to the offense in 
some situations. The purpose of the questioned statutes is to deter and punish 
underage alcohol and substance use; the penalty is the driver's license 
suspension. The question is: "Does the suspension deter and/or punish underage 
alcohol and substance abuse?" It seems obvious that it does. Obtaining a 
driver's license is one of the most important events in a teenager's life. It 
elevates social status in the eyes of peers. It symbolizes freedom and power. It 
is a sign of responsibility and the beginning of breaking ties with one's family 
and being able to set one's own rules.

[¶78]   A case quite similar to this was 
recently considered in Pennsylvania. In Commonwealth v. Strunk, 400 Pa. Super. 
25, 582 A.2d 1326 (1990), the court was presented with a case where the 
nineteen-year-old appellant was arrested for underage possession, consumption, 
transportation and purchase of an alcoholic beverage. Upon conviction, 
appellant's driver's license was suspended for ninety days. Appellant claimed, 
as in this case, that his drinking violation was not connected to the operation 
or possession of a motor vehicle, and that the license suspension was not 
rationally related to the state's interest in promoting the safe operation of 
motor vehicles. He contends that this violated his right to due process. Id. 582 A.2d  at 1327.

[¶79]   The Pennsylvania court found 
appellant's claim to be without merit. "We find that the appellant has failed to 
introduce any evidence to establish that the statute is either arbitrary or 
irrational. [The statute] indeed represents a rational means of deterring and 
punishing underage consumption and possession of alcohol." Id. at 1330. The 
court also noted the importance of the driver's license privilege and why a 
license suspension is more effective as a deterrent than a monetary fine: "We 
recognize that a license to drive a car is an important privilege to youths. 
Their social status, their psychological and physical independence, and their 
ability fully to participate in peer group activity may all be implicated if 
this privilege is suspended." Id.

[¶80]   The threat of losing driving 
privileges is substantial and an effective deterrent and punishment. I think 
this court should have adopted the rule and rationale of Strunk.

[¶81]   The idea of suspending driver's 
licenses for non-vehicular offenses is not novel. The New Jersey Supreme Court 
upheld such a law twenty years ago in State v. Smith, 58 N.J. 202, 276 A.2d 369 
(1971). In finding that suspension of a driver's license for possession of 
marijuana was permissible, the court observed: "It seems to us that addition of 
a temporary forfeiture of a driver's license to a stated fine or imprisonment as 
a preventative regulation clearly represents a reasonable exercise of the 
legislative power to impose limitations upon highway use." Id. 276 A.2d  at 
375.

[¶82]   It is apparent that the state has a 
valid interest in preserving the safety, health, morals, economic and social 
stability and general welfare of its citizens. The statutes involved here are 
rationally related to the legitimate state interests and do not deprive 
appellants of the equal protection of the laws. Accordingly, they do not violate 
either the United States or Wyoming Constitutions.

[¶83]   This court has recognized that the 
prohibition against special legislation does not mean that a statute must affect 
everyone in the same way; it only means that the classification contained in the 
statute must be reasonable, and that the statute must operate on all persons or 
property in the same or similar circumstances and conditions. Mountain Fuel 
Supply Co. v. Emerson, 578 P.2d 1351, 1356 (Wyo. 1978). Article 3, § 27 of the 
Wyoming Constitution is not violated if there is a reasonable classification. 
Nehring v. Russell, 582 P.2d 67, 77 (Wyo. 1978).

[¶84]   By enacting Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-126 
and Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f), the legislature reflected the policy of citizens 
of Wyoming to reduce drunken driving and highway fatalities. If the majority had 
approached this case as they should have, with the presumption that the statutes 
were constitutional, it could easily have justified a holding of 
constitutionality and upheld state policy; but that was not their wont. Driving 
has always been considered a privilege rather than a right; however, the 
majority, without saying so, has elevated this privilege to constitutional 
proportions. The majority has determined that the privilege of a few outweighs 
the policy of the state and its citizens in reducing fatalities and injuries on 
the highways.

[¶85]   In our society, we are obsessed 
with rights to the neglect of duties. A society cannot function if everyone has 
rights and no one has responsibilities. I would uphold the suspension of 
appellants' driver's licenses.

FOOTNOTES

1 Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-126 
provides, in part:

Each court in this state 
shall also forward to the [Department of Revenue and Taxation] within two (2) 
working days from the date of conviction a record of the conviction of any 
person under nineteen (19) years of age in the court for a violation of any law 
regarding the possession, delivery, manufacture or use of a controlled substance 
or alcohol.

Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f) 
provides:

Upon receiving a record 
of the conviction of a driver who is under nineteen (19) years of age for 
violating any law regarding the possession, delivery, manufacture or use of a 
controlled substance or alcohol, the [Department of Revenue and Taxation] shall 
suspend the license or nonresident operating privilege for:

(i) Ninety (90) days for 
the first conviction;

(ii) Six (6) months, if 
the person has been previously convicted within the preceding twelve (12) months 
for violating any law regarding the possession, delivery, manufacture or use of 
a controlled substance or alcohol.

2 Since a person of the 
age of nineteen or older can own a liquor store and can serve alcoholic 
beverages under Wyoming state law, it is incorrect to say that persons of this 
age cannot "possess" alcoholic beverages. It might be illegal to possess 
publicly with intent to use yourself, but not to sell to someone above the age 
of twenty-one. Wyo. Stat. §§ 12-4-103 and 12-6-101 (Supp. 1992). However, for 
persons within the second age group, conviction of a combination offense 
involving both possession to furnish and concurrent use of a motor vehicle can 
result in a driver's license revocation and automobile registration suspension. 
Wyo. Stat. § 12-6-102 (Supp. 1992).

3 Wyoming has an 
interesting array of offenses for minors relating to alcoholic 
beverages.

     First, possession or 
being under the influence on a public road and highway or public place is 
included, but not if in a private place, Wyo. Stat. § 12-6-101(b), with an 
exception to the inclusion of a) when delivering within employment; b) in the 
presence of a parent or legal guardian; or c) dispensing or serving if eighteen 
years of age.

     What is not a street, 
highway or public place is not defined in the statute and there is no criminal 
prohibition under state law against a parent furnishing alcoholic beverages to 
his or her child. However, no one else can. Wyo. Stat. § 12-6-101.

     The subject abounds in 
ambiguities and complexities including what is a law to trigger the 
driving disassociated alcoholic offense, what is a conviction, and can the city 
ordinance render illegal what is legal under state law, e.g., non-public use, 
possession or consumption in the private home or within a ceremonial 
circumstance or even when furnished by a parent. None of the present appellants 
were convicted of the violation of any state statute regarding use or possession 
of alcoholic beverages. Although anyone over the age of nineteen (majority) can 
own a liquor license, he or she cannot use the product sold. Wyo. Stat. §§ 
12-6-101(a) and 12-4-103(a)(vii). To magnify the complexities, a further 
unanswered question exists when a bond is forfeited within the statutes where a 
bond-out nonappearance is only defined as a conviction for a driving 
offense.

     Two concurrent 
newspaper stories are illustrative. One headlined Novello: Laws let teens get 
liquor, Casper Star-Tribune, Sept. 12, 1991, at A2, stated:

State laws intended to 
prevent minors from drinking are "riddled with loopholes" that make it easy for 
teenagers to buy and drink alcoholic beverages, Surgeon General Antonia Novello 
said Wednesday.

     "The federally 
mandated, 21-year-old minimum age drinking law is largely a myth," the surgeon 
general said[.]

It 
was further stated in the second article, Wyo law has loopholes, Casper 
Star-Tribune, Sept. 12, 1991, at A2: "Consumption by minors is not specifically 
illegal in 21 states: * * * [including] Wyoming[,]" since according to the 
national press releases of the Surgeon General and the Health and Human Services 
Office of Inspector General, minors can sell and serve alcohol without adult 
supervision. See however, Michael P. Rosenthal, The Minimum Drinking Age for 
Young People: An Observation, 92 Dick.L.Rev. 649 (1988).

4 The 1988 act which was 
passed by the Wyoming legislature under the threat of loss of federal highway 
funding and other grant and aid funds provided, in part:

All amendments to the 
statutes of Wyoming made by this act are hereby repealed, and the statutes are 
restored and reenacted as they were before the amendments made by this act, if 
Congress repeals Title 23, Section 158 of the United States Code.

1988 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 
44, § 3. Overtly, if the federal threat to fund loss is hereafter removed, the 
minimum age restriction for use of alcoholic beverages would immediately return 
to persons "under the age of nineteen."

5 The enactment of S.F. 2 
into 1991 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 233 includes several interesting facets. The bill, 
when initially introduced by sponsorship of the Joint Conference Committee, 
served the simple purpose of amending Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-126 to increase the 
court reporting time from two days to ten days. Introduction had been prompted 
by public outcry of the court system that the two-day time created a compliance 
impossibility. As enacted as Chapter 233, S.F. 2 was changed in addition to 
amend Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-126 relating to the notice time by adding a subsection 
to Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-120; creating a new subsection (e) for Wyo. Stat. § 
31-7-128, and providing exceptions in Wyo. Stat. § 31-9-401 (Supp. 1991) for the 
minor convicted of alcohol in possession/use offense as an exclusion for the 
reporting requirements under Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f). It would take the wildest 
character of imagination to find compliance with Wyo. Const. art. 3, § 20: "No 
law shall be passed except by bill, and no bill shall be so altered or amended 
on its passage through either house as to change its original purpose." The 
original purpose was to increase the notice time from the court and the ultimate 
purpose detailed permissive and non-permissive conduct of an administrative 
agency and further provided statutory premium limitation and cancellation 
restrictions for any automobile insurance policy as post-license suspension 
action that could be taken by insurance companies.

     Another anomaly was 
created by 1991 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 233. The basic statute in 1990 Wyo. Sess. 
Laws ch. 92 related to two events for application: (1) Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-108, 
original issuance of a license to a minor; and (2) Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f), 
suspension or revocation of a license following issuance. Other than the 
extended reporting time of Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-126 which relates equally to 
issuance or suspension, Chapter 233 includes no provisions for non-issuance of a 
comparable nature as is now provided for suspension. Consequently the proposed 
amelioratory provisions of Wyo. Stat. §§ 31-7-120, 31-7-128 and 31-9-401 apply 
only to the Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-128(f) suspension and do not provide an equivalent 
benefit to a young person who is either an initial applicant or whose driver's 
license may come up for renewal. This equal protection question is actually not 
presented here since all of the appellants held licenses that were suspended and 
none were initial applicants. The broad issues of other constitutional concepts 
regarding premium increases or policy limitations or cancellations by the 
insurance carrier are also not presented since legislative passage of 1991 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws ch. 233 came after the events of this litigation had occurred and 
during the briefing time for these appeals. The legislative effort did remove a 
significant appellate issue, however, which addressed the major insurance costs 
and economic effect on the family of the suspended driver.

6 Apparently, the 
retroactively applied amendment inserted into the statute by 1991 Wyo. Sess. 
Laws ch. 233 was intended to eliminate the insurance cost difficulty initially 
created by the 1990 law. What this would have meant for these individuals is not 
clarified since the statutory change became effective while these appeals were 
pending in this court. Our reversal eliminates any requirement to address the 
issue.

     The S.R. 22 filing is 
an insurance company form documenting its commitment to provide coverage as a 
liability carrier for three years subject only to cancellation for limited 
reasons, including principally nonpayment of premiums. A major insurance cost 
increase results.

7 One of the most 
thoughtful and comprehensively presented analyses of use of the state 
constitution for protection in Wyoming of individual rights was provided in a 
paper presented by University of Wyoming Professor Robert B. Keiter, Reflections 
on "Our Civil, Political and Religious Liberties:" Constitutional Law in the 
Late Twentieth Century, Wyoming State Bar Convention (September 13, 1991). 
Professor Keiter has a forthcoming book to be published (1/93 projected 
publication date) on the subject of Wyoming constitutional law.

8 The single reference to 
equal protection in the federal constitution is located in the first section of 
the Fourteenth Amendment. It may be that the equal treatment of citizens was 
considered a self-evident value not needing enumeration. If that is so, such a 
value may be located in the Ninth Amendment (Unenumerated Rights 
Clause).

9 Although argued in 
detail, closer analysis reveals that the driving force behind enactments such as 
presented here is to enforce non-use of alcoholic beverages by persons under the 
age of nineteen unless in the presence of their parents. Fines or jail are not 
deemed adequate punishment; therefore, driver's license suspension is added to 
the inflicted deterrent. Realists know that the practical result is more 
frequent violations of driving without a driver's license and likely no 
significant reduction in drinking occurrences where groups of young people 
gather in the presence and for the use of alcoholic beverages. See n. 3, 
supra.

10 It is only to state a 
fact that a significant number of young people in 1992 are enrolled in and 
attending institutions of higher education before they achieve majority (age 
nineteen in Wyoming, except for use of alcohol which is age twenty-one or 
voting, age eighteen) and have been driving since age fifteen, sixteen or 
seventeen. Wyo. Stat. § 31-7-110 (1989).

11 It would be excessive 
judicial legislation to apply a similar approach to create a driver's license 
revocation for each adult convicted of either alcohol or illegal drug "related" 
offenses. A bar room disturbance, for example, would achieve a far different 
status in Wyoming penology if loss of right to use a motor vehicle was to be 
included for the prospective punishment.

12 A casual acceptance in 
the cases that a right to drive in this American society is not "fundamental" 
lacks both economic and logical application to this present real world. The 
automobile is of the essence of this country's functional conduct as a society 
and is also totally intrinsic to the behavior and aspiration of most Americans, 
not to mention its foundational place within the national economy. Food might be 
sacrificed, but never the automobile. Unfortunately, as found from the number of 
unlicensed drivers involved in accidents, it is easier to suspend driver's 
licenses than it is to keep unlicensed persons from driving. With little public 
transportation in Wyoming, the motor vehicle and its usage is even more closely 
woven into citizens' conduct and society's operation.

     The right to drive and 
use an automobile inevitably involves the right to travel. Shapiro v. Thompson, 
394 U.S. 618, 89 S. Ct. 1322, 22 L. Ed. 2d 600 (1969); United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745, 86 S. Ct. 1170, 16 L. Ed. 2d 239 (1966). See also Zobel v. Williams, 457 U.S. 55, 65, 102 S. Ct. 2309, 72 L. Ed. 2d 672 (1982) (Brennan, J., concurring and 
cases therein cited). The component of driving in potentiality for harm is 
clearly inculcated with the public interest resulting from dangerousness. 
Foreseeable liability with reoccurrence of death and damage justifies the police 
power exercised responsibility for legislation. We will not either demean the 
exercise of the police power for legislation or the incident of driving as both 
involve fundamental constituents of life in this modern world. Automobiles and 
driving, while indispensable generally in this society, also achieve a basic 
constitutional status for standards of preemptive regulation as a simple fact 
of life.

     A freedom to travel 
constituent of present society is posited in accord with Zobel, 457 U.S.  at 65, 
102 S. Ct.  at 2315 (Brennan, J., concurring). Variant reasons could be found to 
deny the right to drive to anyone under any arbitrary age, twenty-one or 
twenty-five, or over a similarly arbitrary age, sixty-five or seventy, but not 
just to those only under nineteen who visit a house party in a circumstance 
proscribed by a city ordinance. We recognize a state constitutional right to 
travel intrinsically protected by Article 1 of our constitution and emplaced in 
Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 2, equality; art. 1, § 7, no absolute, arbitrary power; 
and art. 1, § 36, rights not enumerated reserved to the people. Within these 
general sections, freedom of travel must be included.

     By parity of 
reasoning, comparison can be made to the decisions of various courts addressing 
the concept that automobile use was not fundamental within our society when the 
guest statute litigation through Silver v. Silver, 280 U.S. 117, 50 S. Ct. 57, 74 L. Ed. 221 (1929), and then the seminal case Brown v. Merlo, 8 Cal. 3d 855, 106 Cal. Rptr. 388, 506 P.2d 212 (1973), continued to this court's decision in 
Nehring, 582 P.2d 67. See Annotation, Constitutionality of Automobile and 
Aviation Guest Statutes, 66 A.L.R.3d 532 (1975). See also Comment, The 
Constitutionality of Automobile Guest Statutes: A Roadmap to the Recent Equal 
Protection Challenges, 1975 B.Y.U.L.Rev. 99 (1975); Andrew Kull, Comment, The 
Common Law Basis of Automobile Guest Statutes, 43 U.Chi.L.Rev. 798 (1976); and 
the constitutional revocation of the Wyoming statute by this court, Nehring, 582 P.2d 67.

     Although the case 
investigated public service commission regulation of common carriers, the 
quotation by Chief Justice Blume of an earlier West Virginia case remains 
informative:

     "The right of a 
citizen to travel upon the highway and transport his property thereon, in the 
ordinary course of life and business, differs radically and obviously from that 
of one who makes the highway his place of business and uses it for private gain, 
in the running of a stagecoach or omnibus. The former is the usual and ordinary 
right of a citizen, a right common to all, while the latter is special, unusual 
and extraordinary. * * *"

Weaver v. Public Service 
Commission of Wyoming, 40 Wyo. 462, 476, 278 P. 542, 546 (1929) (quoting Ex 
parte Dickey, 76 W. Va. 576, 579, 85 S.E. 781, 782 (1915)).

     The fact that the 
exercise of the right of citizens to drive causes danger to other drivers where 
harm may occur so that regulation is appropriate does not make it any less a 
fundamental right within the practical facts involved in the inappropriate 
exercise with consequent risk of danger and possible harm. Cf. Campbell v. 
State, Dept. of Revenue, Div. of Motor Vehicles, 176 Colo. 202, 491 P.2d 1385 
(1971). See, however, Heninger v. Charnes, 200 Colo. 194, 613 P.2d 884 (1980). 
Likewise, there was no rational classification inquiry focused in decision for 
suspension after a second DWUI conviction in Moreno v. State, Dept. of Revenue 
and Taxation, 775 P.2d 497 (Wyo. 1989).

13 The operational 
difficulty with the initial New Jersey law as equally encountered by the Wyoming 
statute, each of which required changes in the next session while an appeal was 
in progress, is illuminating. The New Jersey opinion of Smith, 276 A.2d 369 was 
actually written when the law which is discussed no longer existed. By that 
time, amendments included the change to provide for a discretionary decision by 
the sentencing court and elimination of any first offender application. 
Renovated statutes and bad cases which result in immediate legislative change do 
not necessarily yield the most logical precedent.

14 Although clearly based 
solely on statutory construction, a decision of the California Supreme Court, 
Mercer v. Department of Motor Vehicles, 53 Cal. 3d 753, 280 Cal. Rptr. 745, 809 P.2d 404 (1991), provided informative thought in recognizing that the state 
could suspend or revoke a driver's license for failure to submit to chemical 
testing only with evidence of an observed moving violation of a vehicle. Driving 
was required to trigger application of the mandatory provisions of the implied 
consent statute.

     An even more recent 
topic of relevance is found in another California case, Ellis v. Pierce, 230 Cal. App. 3d 1557, 282 Cal. Rptr. 93 (1991), involving refusal to take the chemical 
test in conjunction with the United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 109 S. Ct. 1892, 104 L. Ed. 2d 487 (1989) double jeopardy question. The California court 
found that the driver's license suspension was not remedial for the purpose of 
the Halper decision, was likewise not compensatory and furthermore could not "be 
fairly characterized as a deterrent or retribution, either." Ellis, 282 Cal. Rptr.  at 95.

     The court recognized 
that the generic purpose was to "`provide safety for all persons using the 
highways * * * by quickly suspending the driving privilege of those persons who 
have shown themselves to be safety hazards by driving with an excessive 
concentration of alcohol in their bodies[,]'" id. at 95 (quoting a California 
statute), which was neither deterrent nor retributive, but rather to provide a 
protection to public safety by keeping drunk drivers off the public roads in 
facilitation of the gathering of evidence. A similarity was found by comparison 
to the disbarment or suspension of an attorney after conviction of a crime 
involving moral turpitude. The court concluded:

The attorney's disbarment 
or suspension does not constitute a second punishment in violation of the Double 
Jeopardy Clause because the State Bar proceeding is "sui generis, neither civil 
nor criminal in character." (Fitzsimmons v. State Bar, 34 Cal. 3d 327, 332, 193 Cal. Rptr. 896, 667 P.2d 700 (1983), emphasis in original, quoting Yokozeki v. 
State Bar, 11 Cal. 3d 436, 447, 113 Cal. Rptr. 602, 521 P.2d 858 (1974).) This is 
because the purpose of the disbarment or suspension is not to punish, but to 
protect the public from unfit lawyers. That purpose is "reminiscent of" but 
nevertheless distinct from the criminal process.

Ellis, 282 Cal. Rptr.  at 
95.

     The applied concept 
that suspension processes should relate to conduct of the driver and safety of 
the public and not as a disassociated punishment for another character of 
misconduct is clearly applicable to this case.

15 We are aware of the 
severe pressure that may have been applied to proportionality by recent 
decisions of the United States Supreme Court. See, e.g., Harmelin v. Michigan, 
___ U.S. ___, 111 S. Ct. 2680, 115 L. Ed. 2d 836 (1991). However, it is clear that 
a proportionality character of punishment remains as a constitutional imperative 
without regard for the variant postures adopted by the members of the United 
States Supreme Court in Harmelin. In this case, the gravity and severity of the 
punishment as a second course of societal imposition for the "minor miscreant" 
evidences no reasoned relationship to the attained difference immediately after 
a person becomes nineteen. (For current reconsideration of Harmelin to state 
law, see State v. Bartlett, 171 Ariz. 302, 830 P.2d 823 (1992)).

16 The Pennsylvania 
statutory process, 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6310.4 (Purdon Supp. 1991), 
recognizes a judicial function in assessment of the penalty and provides a 
series of sequential suspensions to be entered as a penalty for the offense 
by judicial action. It is interesting to note that the initial Pennsylvania 
act included an insurance premium provision similar to what is now provided in 
current Wyoming law.

An insurer shall not 
increase premiums, impose any surcharge or rate penalty, or make any driver 
record point assignment for automobile insurance, nor shall an insurer cancel or 
refuse to renew an automobile insurance policy on account of a suspension under 
this section.

Id. 
See Strunk, 582 A.2d 1326.

     The Utah statute, Utah 
Code Ann. § 78-3a-39.5 (1992) (juvenile code provision), similarly provides for 
judicial action as the sentence for the possession violation and provides an age 
limitation of younger than eighteen years. The law additionally provides a 
permissive right for judicial discretion whether to suspend (on the first 
offense).

     Colo. Rev. Stat. § 
42-2-122(5)(a) (Supp. 1991) applies the law to persons under seventeen years of 
age and provides an alternative in the judicial sentencing of first conviction - 
either twenty-four hours of public service or three months 
suspension.

     Ark. Code Ann. §§ 
5-64-710, 5-65-116 and 27-16-914 (Michie Supp. 1991) provide a license 
suspension for persons under the age of eighteen and relate to court action as 
an order of denial of privileges including a hardship exception. In Carney, 808 S.W.2d 755, deterrence was the principle applied by the court in authenticating 
the relevant statute.

     Oregon state law is 
age seventeen (under age eighteen, see White, 730 P.2d 1279) or under adaptation 
for any crime, violation, infraction or other offense involving the possession, 
use or abuse of alcohol within the enforcement process of a violation order 
issued by the court of conviction. 1985 Or. Laws ch. 16, § 206. See Day, 733 P.2d 937 and White, 730 P.2d 1279.

     In all states with any 
reasonably comparable statutes which were found in research, the revocation 
involves judicial action and results in authentication as part of the sentencing 
order.

17 The recognition of the 
author, Chief Justice Earl Warren, in Trop remains cogent here.

Courts must not consider 
the wisdom of statutes but neither can they sanction as being merely unwise that 
which the Constitution forbids.

     We are oath-bound to 
defend the Constitution. This obligation requires that congressional enactments 
be judged by the standards of the Constitution. The Judiciary has the duty of 
implementing the constitutional safeguards that protect individual rights. When 
the Government acts to take away the fundamental right of citizenship, the 
safeguards of the Constitution should be examined with special 
diligence.

     The provisions of the 
Constitution are not time-worn adages or hollow shibboleths. They are vital, 
living principles that authorize and limit governmental powers in our Nation. 
They are the rules of government.

Trop, 356 U.S.  at 103, 78 S. Ct.  at 599. We should not extend the typical driver's license suspension 
analysis to these cases since no driving or vehicular use offense is involved. 
Cases which address the right to drive could be applied to anyone of any age 
equally. See Mackey v. Montrym, 443 U.S. 1, 99 S. Ct. 2612, 61 L. Ed. 2d 321 (1979) 
and Dixon v. Love, 431 U.S. 105, 97 S. Ct. 1723, 52 L.E.2d 172 (1977) to be 
compared with Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 91 S. Ct. 1586, 29 L. Ed. 2d 90 (1971) 
(regulation of driving activities). Comparable are other activities such as 
those encompassing control or regulation which are found to address a more 
appropriately identified policy power exercise in Village of Hoffman Estates v. 
Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 102 S. Ct. 1186, 71 L. Ed. 2d 362 
(1982) (sale of drug paraphernalia); or that require the Jaycees organization to 
admit women to membership, Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 104 S. Ct. 3244, 82 L. Ed. 2d 462 (1984).

     Conversely, drinking 
alcohol at a private party which is not illegal under state law presents greater 
similarity to the preclusive ordinance which requires persons who "loiter or 
wander" to provide "`credible and reliable'" identification upon police officer 
demand. Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 353, 103 S. Ct. 1855, 1856, 75 L. Ed. 2d 903 (1983) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 
(1968)). Although this last case was determined on a basis of vagueness, we find 
a similarity in out-reach of police power control and disassociated enforcement 
opportunity. Kolender, 461 U.S. 352, 103 S. Ct. 1855. See similarly within a 
discussion of a town vagrancy ordinance, Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 
405 U.S. 156, 92 S. Ct. 839, 31 L. Ed. 2d 110 (1972); and assessed costs on 
criminal charge acquittal, Giaccio v. State of Pa., 382 U.S. 399, 86 S. Ct. 518, 
15 L. Ed. 2d 447 (1966).