Opinion ID: 2359432
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: State v. Greene

Text: On the evidence before us, we find the following facts. In District Court (Skowhegan) on September 28, 1983, defendant Donald Greene admitted a charge that he had committed the civil traffic infraction of speeding. On the same day Judge Benoit sentenced him to pay a $120 fine and suspended his driver's license for 60 days. On October 4, 1983, Greene filed a notice of appeal and a request for a stay of execution of the license suspension based on District Court Civil Rule 62. Judge Benoit denied the request, stating, [The appeal] is interposed for delay only. Several days later the Superior Court entered an order staying the execution of the license suspension pending appeal. On the merits of that appeal, the Superior Court affirmed the District Court decision, but gave Greene a credit of seven days on his license suspension for that period in which defendant's license suspension should have been stayed. District Court Civil Rule 62(e), which is made applicable to civil traffic infraction cases by Rule 80F(a) of the District Court Civil Rules, provides in part: [T]he taking of an appeal from a judgment shall operate as a stay of execution upon the judgment during the pendency of the appeal.... The District Court Civil Rules thus declare that the filing of a notice of appeal in a civil case, such as State v. Greene, operates automatically to stay execution upon the judgment, without any judicial action. When Greene's attorney asked Judge Benoit to order a stay pending appeal, he sought a meaningless and needless act and implied by his request that he believed Judge Benoit had discretion in the matter. We cannot say in these circumstances that a reasonably prudent and competent judge would consider Judge Benoit's reaction to the request to be obviously and seriously wrong.