Opinion ID: 1387132
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Toyomura's reliance on the Dow decision is misplaced.

Text: As a final matter, Toyomura invokes Dow, supra, in support of his contention that [b]ecause [he] suffered a punishment in his ADLRO license revocation proceeding, he could not again be subjected to a criminal DUI proceeding that submitted him to possible additional punishment without violating double jeopardy principles. For the reasons discussed below, Toyomura's reliance on Dow is misplaced. In Dow, the defendant (Dow) was convicted in a Hawai`i state court of DUI and was sentenced, inter alia, to fourteen hours of attendance at an alcohol rehabilitation [17] program. Following his unsuccessful appeal, Dow sought habeas corpus relief in the United States District Court for the District of Hawai`i on the ground that, in obtaining his conviction, the state had violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. Dow, 995 F.2d at 923. [18] The district court denied Dow's petition, holding that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain it because the mandatory class attendance to which Dow was sentenced did not amount to a sufficient restraint on his liberty to constitute custody within the meaning of the applicable federal statute. Id. at 922. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's decision, reasoning as follows: To invoke federal habeas corpus review, the petition must be in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). The only question before us is whether the requirement of class attendance amounts to custody under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). Although [Dow] is not subject to incarceration, the custody requirement of section 2254 may be met even if the petitioner is not physically confined. A petitioner on parole, for example, is in custody within the meaning of section 2254, because the parole restrictions significantly restrain [the] petitioner's liberty to do those things which in this country free men are entitled to do. Similarly, a petitioner who is released on his own recognizance pending appeal is also in custody due to the conditions imposed on [the] petitioner as the price of his release. Therefore, to satisfy the custody requirement, [a] petitioner must demonstrate that he is subject to a significant restraint upon his liberty not shared by the public generally. The sentence in this case, requiring [Dow's] physical presence at a particular place, significantly restrains [his] liberty to do those things which free persons in the United States are entitled to do and therefore must be characterized, for jurisdictional purposes, as custody. [Dow] cannot come and go as he pleases. Moreover, [Dow] suffers a greater restraint upon his liberty mandatory class attendance  than the restraint suffered by a person who is released upon his own recognizance. Because [Dow] is in custody within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2254, he is entitled to invoke federal habeas corpus jurisdiction. Id. at 923 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted) (emphases added). Although somewhat obscurely articulated in his opening brief, Toyomura's argument seems to be as follows: (1) by virtue of his administrative license revocation, he was required to undergo a needs assessment and possible treatment for alcohol abuse or dependence, the costs of which he would be obliged to incur; (2) these requirements were akin to a criminal punishment and, pursuant to Dow, constituted custody; (3) custody is the functional equivalent of punishment; (4) the DUI conviction placed him at risk of possible additional punishment; and, therefore, (5) he has been subjected to multiple punishments for the same offense, in contravention of the constitutional right against double jeopardy. The logic of Toyomura's argument is sheer sophistry, and Dow is completely inapposite. First, the Administrative Revocation Program in general, and HRS § 286-261(d) in particular, did not affirmatively require Toyomura to do anything. See supra section II.A.2. Second, Toyomura's ADLRO proceeding served nonpunitive [] and purely remedial functions, Higa, 79 Hawai`i at 7, 897 P.2d at 934, and he has suffered no punishment as a result of it. See supra section II.A.1. Third, the Dow paradigm was merely that a criminal DUI sentence, involving a mandatory restraint upon a person's freedom of movement, entailed custody and, thus, properly implicated federal habeas corpus jurisdictiona proposition utterly irrelevant to the present appeal. Fourth, neither Dow nor, to our knowledge, any other authority suggests that custody, without more, is synonymous with punishment in the double jeopardy context. And fifth, although Toyomura's DUI conviction obviously subjected him to possible punishment, see HRS § 291-4(b) (1993), any punishment meted out was not additional to the consequences of his administrative driver's license revocation, the latter, as noted, being nonpunitive and purely remedial. We therefore hold that Dow fails to establish that Toyomura has been subjected to multiple punishments for the same offense.