Opinion ID: 1992117
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: remedial purpose

Text: The State argued that Neb.Rev.Stat. § 39-669.15 (Cum.Supp.1992) (now codified at Neb.Rev.Stat. § 60-6,205 (Reissue 1993)) is partially remedial in purpose and that any punitive element rises at worst to an acceptable sting of punishment described by the Halper Court. 490 U.S. at 447 n. 7, 109 S.Ct. at 1901 n. 7 (noting that for the defendant even remedial sanctions carry the sting of punishment). In tolerating the punitive purpose of ALR, the majority confuses the distinction made by the Halper Court: a punitive purpose violates double jeopardy, whereas a punitive sting or inevitable punitive impact does not. In determining whether ALR carries a punitive sting or rather operates with a purpose of punishing the motorist, we are properly guided by Halper 's question of what purpose a sanction may fairly be said ... to serve. The Supreme Court of New Jersey applied this analysis in Doe v. Poritz, 142 N.J. 1, 662 A.2d 367 (1995), which I cite as an example of a truly remedial remedy to be contrasted against ALR. In Poritz, a convicted sex offender sought to enjoin enforcement of statutes requiring registration of convicted sex offenders and community notification of their presence. The appellant argued that these statutes violated the Double Jeopardy Clause's prohibition against multiple punishments. The Supreme Court of New Jersey rejected this challenge and upheld the statutes, finding that the legislature had addressed rationally a problem within its competence and without any intent of punishing. The statutes responded to a documented history of attacks by convicted sex offenders in New Jersey. The state had warned that any harassment of known sex offenders would not be tolerated, and had further expressed in the clearest words that the sole purpose of these statutes was to protect, not to punish. This stated purpose was borne out by the words and operation of the statutes, which suggested means by which a community, notified of the presence of a sex offender, could act to protect its children and families from reoffense. Because the statutes focused on the state's responsibility to the community, the sanction of registration and notification could not fairly have been said to serve as further punishment for convicted sex offenders. In upholding the statutes, the Poritz court analyzed the degree of deterrence or retribution that the Fifth Amendment tolerates in a remedial statute. The court never denied that convicted sex offenders would feel stigmatized if their neighbors learned of their status. This stigma, however, was the sting of punishment and not the deliberate purpose of the statute. What counts ... is the purpose and design of the statutory provision, its remedial goal and purposes, and not the resulting consequential impact, the `sting of punishment' that may inevitably, but incidentally, flow from it. (Emphasis supplied.) Poritz, 142 N.J. at 58, 662 A.2d at 396. The Poritz court wrote that the Double Jeopardy Clause was not intended to prevent government from performing its legitimate functions, especially when [a statute's] regulatory intent is totally free of any suggestion of concealed punitive purpose. As the punitive impact becomes more pronounced, however, the balance may shift and the fact of punishment may overwhelm the purity of the government's action, imputing to it ... a punitive purpose. 142 N.J. at 61, 662 A.2d at 398. By distinguishing punitive impact from punitive purpose, the Poritz court distinguished the sex offender statutes from other statutes whose purpose cannot be limited to remedy. The regulatory intent of the New Jersey sex offender statutes was consciously free from a deliberate punitive purpose. The same cannot be said of Nebraska's ALR statutes. The ALR statutes do not reflect the remedial aspects of the New Jersey sex offender statutes: the focus of ALR is the offender and the crime rather than a general, remedial purpose. The deterrentand thus punitiveeffect of ALR far exceeds the sting or incidental impact that Halper tolerates. The most painfully obvious evidence of a punitive purpose appears in the introductory paragraph of § 39-669.15 (now § 60-6,205): Because persons who drive while under the influence of alcohol present a hazard to the health and safety of all persons using the highways, a procedure is needed for the swift and certain revocation of the operator's license of any person who has shown himself or herself to be a health and safety hazard by driving with an excessive concentration of alcohol in his or her body and to deter others from driving while under the influence of alcohol. (Emphasis supplied.) This language is inescapable. Despite Halper 's holding that deterrence is not a legitimate nonpunitive purpose, 490 U.S. at 448, 109 S.Ct. at 1902, the Legislature chose to state in the clearest words its intent to deter Nebraskans from driving drunk. This blunt deterrent purpose does not concern the majority, which finds that a secondary deterrent purpose somehow passes muster under Halper. The majority admits the existence of a deterrent purpose in this case and in Hansen, supra, holding that [t]he fact that a statute designed primarily to serve remedial purposes secondarily serves the exemplary purpose of general deterrence does not require a conclusion that the statute results in punishment for double jeopardy purposes. This holding defies both Halper and all reasonable explanation. Common sense tells us that general deterrence is achieved by punishing one as an example for others; it cannot be achieved without an instance of specific deterrence. The Halper Court never distinguished between general and specific deterrence in stating that any deterrent purpose is impermissible. Even without the clarification of Austin, the language of Halper allows at most a sting of punishment, and certainly does not permit an exemplary purpose of general deterrence. In fact, not one of the courts that upholds ALR on the basis of a more restrictive reading of Halper has allowed anything resembling an exemplary purpose of general deterrence. Those courts simply deny that any deterrent purpose beyond a sting of punishment exists in ALR. As the Nebraska Legislatureunlike any other state legislatureremoved all question of a deterrent purpose in its wording of § 39-669.15 (now § 60-6,205), the majority has set forth an unprecedented interpretation of Halper that allows a deterrent purposethe very thing that Halper stands to prohibit. If a particular remedial sanction can only be understood as also serving punitive goals, then the person subjected to that sanction has been punished despite that the sanction is also remedial. U.S. v. Hudson, 14 F.3d 536 (10th Cir.1994). See, also, Kvitka v. Board of Registration in Medicine, 407 Mass. 140, 551 N.E.2d 915 (1990) (finding that remedial purpose of sanctioning physician, convicted of drug offense, was overwhelmed by disciplinary board's stated desire to punish physician and to deter other physicians from engaging in similar conduct, thereby triggering double jeopardy protection). The fact that ALR may advance a remedial purpose of clearing our roads of drunk drivers cannot negate the fact that the Legislature also aimed, in deliberate design and purpose, to deter drunk driving by creating another means of punishing drunk drivers. Not only is the deterrent purpose at least equal in force to the stated remedial purpose, but a careful reading of the ALR statutes reveals provisions that weaken the force of the remedial purpose. Notably, as the arresting officer impounds a motorist's license with one hand, he or she immediately issues the motorist a 30-day temporary license with the other hand. § 39-669.15(4) (now § 60-6,205(4)). Yet the stated remedial purpose of ALR is to get drunk drivers off the roads immediately, thereby ostensibly reducing the chance that a motorist will drive drunk again between arrest and trial. The persuasive value of this purpose depends on an assumption that a drunk driver poses no DUI threat during the life of the 30-day temporary permit, but that the DUI threat is resurrected when the 30-day period expires and would manifest but for the activation of ALR. The majority does not explain what remedy is furthered by giving a DUI offender 30 more days to drive drunk before revoking his license. The majority states correctly that the temporary permit is necessary to protect a motorist's rights to due process: as a driver's license is a constitutionally protected interest, it cannot be taken without due process. See, Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 91 S.Ct. 1586, 29 L.Ed.2d 90 (1971); State v. Michalski, 221 Neb. 380, 377 N.W.2d 510 (1985). Indeed, the stated remedial goal of ALR forces the State into a Hobson's choice: either stay true to the goal of getting drunk drivers off the road, issue no temporary permit, and violate the motorist's right to due process; or issue a temporary permit, cast grave doubts upon the claim that ALR has any remedial qualities, and trigger double jeopardy protection. Either way, this court must sacrifice a constitutional guarantee to uphold a statute whose remedial purpose is weak and whose indicia of punitive purpose are strong. The Legislature's provision for procedural protections does not cancel out the bluntly stated purpose of furthering a deterrent objective in plain violation of Halper and the Fifth Amendment.