Title: State v. Sims
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S49340
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: April 3, 2003

Filed: April 3, 2003
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON

STATE OF OREGON,
	Petitioner on Review,
	v.
MICHAEL WARNER SIMS,
	Respondent on Review,
(CC 97CR1061MA; CA A104178; SC S49340)

	On review from the Court of Appeals.*
	Argued and submitted January 10, 2003.
	Rolf C. Moan, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause for petitioner on
review.  With him on the petition for review were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Michael
D. Reynolds, Solicitor General.  With him on the brief on the merits were Hardy Myers, Attorney
General, and Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General.
	Dan Maloney, Deputy Public Defender, Salem, argued the cause for respondent on
review.  With him on the brief was David E. Groom, Acting Executive Director, Office of Public
Defense Services.
	Before, Carson, Chief Justice, and Gillette, Durham, Riggs, De Muniz, and Balmer,
Justices.**
	DE MUNIZ, J.
	The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The judgment of the circuit court is
affirmed.
	*Appeal from Deschutes County Circuit Court, Michael A. Adler, Judge. 176 Or App 484, 31 P3d 1129 (2001).
	**Leeson, J., resigned January 31, 2003, and did not participate in the decision of this
case.
		DE MUNIZ, J.
		The issue in this felony Driving While Revoked (DWR)
case is whether defendant can attack collaterally the validity of
a ten-year-old administrative order revoking his driver license. 
Defendant raised the issue by moving to dismiss the DWR charge
and by moving to exclude evidence of that order at his trial on
the DWR charge.  The trial court denied those motions, concluding
that defendant could not attack the order collaterally because he
had failed to challenge it in the ten years that the order had
been in effect.  The Court of Appeals, however, reversed and
remanded the case on the ground that that court's prior holdings
expressly allowed that kind of collateral attack on an underlying
administrative order.  State v. Sims, 176 Or App 484, 31 P3d 1129
(2001).  We allowed review and now reverse the decision of the
Court of Appeals.
		In 1988, the Motor Vehicles Division (MVD) classified
defendant as a Habitual Traffic Offender (HTO) under ORS 809.600
(1987), because MVD determined that defendant had been convicted
of three or more major traffic offenses in a five-year period. 
In accordance with that statute, MVD entered an order revoking
defendant's driver license.
		Nearly ten years later -- in 1997 -- defendant was
arrested under ORS 813.010 (1997) for driving under the influence
of intoxicants (DUII).  Defendant, however, never had challenged
his earlier HTO revocation order; neither had he properly sought
restoration of his driving privileges under the appropriate
statutes.  Thus, his driver license had remained revoked over the
preceding decade and, as a result, defendant also was charged
with felony DWR under ORS 811.182(3) (1997).
		Before trial, defendant moved to dismiss the DWR charge
and to exclude evidence of his HTO revocation order.  He argued
that his certified driving record showed that he had been
convicted of only two major traffic offenses before the effective
date of the 1988 order.  The statute, however, required three
convictions.  The state opposed defendant's motions, arguing that
MVD's computerized records went back only ten years.  As a
result, the state noted, defendant's driving record was
incomplete; it did not encompass three of the five years upon
which the revocation order was based.  The state also argued
that, in any event, defendant had received proper notice that his
license had been revoked as a Habitual Traffic Offender and that
he never had contested that revocation.  The trial court denied
defendant's motions.  Defendant subsequently stipulated that MVD
had revoked his driving privileges before his arrest, and a jury
convicted him of felony DWR.
		Defendant appealed, assigning error to the denial of
his motions to dismiss and to exclude evidence.  In the Court of
Appeals, defendant argued that he could attack the validity of
the HTO revocation order collaterally and that his driving record
did not contain the requisite convictions to support the order. 
Sims, 176 Or App at 488.  The Court of Appeals agreed.  Citing
several of its past decisions, that court concluded:
		"Defendant is correct that he may contest the
validity of the HTO order in this criminal proceeding. 
We have previously held that a defendant can attack the
convictions underlying an HTO order in a prosecution
for felony driving while revoked.  See, e.g., State v.
Fritz, 85 Or App 1, 4, 735 P2d 1228, rev den 303 Or 700
(1987); State v. Hardt, 81 Or App 607, 726 P2d 953,
adhered to on recons 83 Or App 221, 730 P2d 1278
(1986), rev den 303 Or 74 (1987).  As we recently
explained in State v. Riddell, 172 Or App 675, 21 P3d
128, rev den 332 Or 430 (2001), nonjury administrative
decisions seldom will have a preclusive effect on
subsequent criminal proceedings.  Because the
fundamental issue here does not substantively differ
from that in Fritz and Hardt, defendant may contest the
validity of the HTO order in this criminal proceeding."
Id. at 489.  The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the trial
court to determine the validity of defendant's HTO revocation
order.  Id.  This court, in turn, allowed review to consider
whether the HTO revocation order indeed is susceptible to
collateral attack.
We begin our analysis by examining the text and context
of ORS 811.182 (1997), the statute that criminalized defendant's
driving with a revoked driver license.  In doing so, our purpose
is to discern the intent of the legislature in enacting the
statute.  See PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606,
610-12, 859 P2d 1143 (1993) (outlining this court's statutory
construction methodology).  Under the PGE framework, words of
common usage are given their "plain, natural, and ordinary
meaning."  Id. at 611.  If the intent is clear from the text and
context of the statute, then further analysis is unnecessary. 
Id.  ORS 811.182 (1997) provided, (1) in part:
"(1) A person commits the offense of criminal
driving while suspended or revoked if the person
violates ORS 811.175[ (2)] and the suspension or revocation
is one described in this section * * *.
		"* * * * *
		"(3) The crime is a Class C felony if the
suspension or revocation resulted from any of the
following:
"(a) Habitual offender status under ORS 809.640." (3)
The text of ORS 811.182 (1997) does not require the state, in
prosecuting a charge of felony DWR, to consider, much less prove,
the validity of defendant's HTO revocation order. (4)

  Nor does it
provide defendant with an affirmative defense based on proof of
the order's invalidity.  Instead, the statute requires the state
to prove only that (1) MVD had revoked defendant's license based
on his HTO status; and (2) defendant drove a motor vehicle when
the revocation order was in effect.
Based on the text of ORS 811.182 (1987), it appears
that the legislature intended to criminalize the violation of an
HTO revocation order without requiring the state to revisit the
convictions underlying that order. (5)  The Court of Appeals'
contrary decision, however, appears to be premised on the case
law that, over the years, has interpreted the various statutes
authorizing driver license suspensions and revocations.  In
particular, the parties dispute the legal effect of this court's
decision in State v. Tooley, 297 Or 602, 687 P2d 1068 (1984). (6) 
We turn to that question.
		In Tooley, the defendant's driver license was
erroneously revoked.  In its revocation notice to the defendant,
MVD informed him that he was not permitted to drive until MVD 
reinstated his license.  297 Or at 604-05.  That notice, however,
incorrectly communicated to the defendant that his license
revocation would become effective regardless of whether he
requested a hearing and would remain in effect unless and until
he prevailed in such an endeavor.  Id. at 609.  Shortly
thereafter, the defendant was stopped while driving and was
charged with, and convicted of, DWR.  Id. at 605.
		On review, the state argued that the defendant was
bound to obey the license revocation until otherwise notified by
MVD.  Id. at 605.  This court disagreed, concluding that
"defendant was never adequately informed of his right to contest
the hearing before the revocation went into effect."  Id. at 609. 
This court went on to conclude that, because defendant had not
received adequate notice of his statutory right to a
prerevocation hearing, the revocation was erroneous and
defendant's operation of a motor vehicle was not unlawful. 
Accordingly, this court reversed the defendant's DWR conviction.
		This court's holding in Tooley is a limited one and
does not provide support for the kind of collateral attack on the
HTO revocation order that defendant seeks in this case.  That is
so because, unlike the defendant in Tooley, defendant here does
not argue that the notice of his license revocation was defective
or that he was denied a prerevocation hearing.
		To reiterate, Tooley does not authorize, in every case, 
a collateral attack on the administrative order underlying a
criminal prosecution from driving with a suspended or revoked
driver license.  A criminal defendant's ability to attack
collaterally the validity of an underlying suspension or
revocation order must arise from the legislature's intent to
permit such an attack.
		Here, we conclude that the legislature intended only
that the state prove that MVD had revoked defendant's license and
that defendant drove a motor vehicle when the revocation order
was in effect.  The legislature did not intend to permit a
defendant to attack the HTO revocation order collaterally in a
prosecution for DWR under ORS 811.182 (1997).
		The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The
judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.



1. 	The current version of ORS 811.182 is similar to ORS
811.182 (1997), except that a violation based on an HTO-related
revocation is now a Class A misdemeanor.  ORS 811.182(4)(f)
(2001).

2. 	ORS 811.175 (1997) provided, in part:
"(1) A person commits the offense of infraction
driving while suspended or revoked if the person does
any of the following:
"(a) Drives a motor vehicle upon a highway during
a period when the person's driving privileges * * *
have been suspended or revoked in this state by a court
or by the Department of Transportation."


3. 	In 1988, when MVD concluded that defendant was a
Habitual Traffic Offender and revoked his driver license, ORS
809.640(1) and (2) (1987) provided:
		"(1) When the division determines from the driving
record of a person as maintained by the division that a
person's driving privileges are required to be revoked
as a habitual offender under ORS 809.600, the division
shall do the following:
		"(a) Revoke the driving privileges of the person.
		"(b) Notify the person, as provided under ORS
809.620, of the revocation and of this person's right
to a hearing as provided under this section.
		"(2) If the person makes a request for a hearing
within the time required under ORS 809.620, the
division shall stay the effective date of the
revocation under this section."


4. 	It is important to note that, by the time that
defendant was charged with DWR, Oregon statutes had afforded him
the opportunity for at least three evidentiary hearings in which
the state had the burden of proving every element of a major
motor vehicle-related offense.  ORS 809.600 (1987).  The statutes
also had given him an administrative opportunity to challenge any
convictions erroneously attributed to him.  Specifically, the
statute afforded him a contested case hearing in which the state
was required to prove that (1) the driving record at issue was
indeed defendant's; (2) the convictions on the record were indeed
defendant's; and (3) defendant had received proper notice of the
revocation proceedings.  See ORS 809.640 (1987) (setting out
those provisions).  The statutes also gave defendant the right to
challenge that administrative outcome in the Court of Appeals. 
See ORS 183.482 (1987) (providing for Court of Appeals review).
5. 	Defendant maintains that the state did not preserve
that argument for review in this court.  Before the Court of
Appeals, the state argued that defendant could not attack
collaterally the basis for the HTO revocation because defendant
had been provided the required notice and did not pursue an
administrative appeal of the order revoking his license.  On
review, the state argues that defendant cannot attack
collaterally the HTO revocation because the state proved the
elements of the crime and defendant no longer has any procedural
method for attacking the underlying administrative order that
revoked his license.  We conclude that the two arguments are
sufficiently related such that the state preserved the issue for
review.  See Tarwater v. Cupp, 304 Or 639, 644 n 5, 748 P2d 125
(1988) (petitioner cannot argue or raise issue that was not
before Court of Appeals).

6. 	Tooley was not cited in the Court of Appeals decision
below.  It was, however, interpreted by that court in State v.
Hardt, 81 Or App 607, 726 P2d 953, adhered to on recons, 83 Or
App 221, 730 P2d 1278 (1986), rev den 303 Or 74, 734 P2d 354
(1987), to allow a defendant to attack his HTO revocation order
collaterally in a subsequent criminal proceeding.  As a result,
the Court of Appeals decisions that since have flowed from Hardt
- including the one at issue here -- have, wittingly or not,
relied on Tooley as their primary source.