Opinion ID: 2359432
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: State v. Wickham

Text: On the evidence before us, we find the following facts. The defendant, Mark S. Wickham, was charged with civil OUI. He admitted the civil traffic infraction in District Court (Skowhegan) on September 7, 1983. On that date Judge Benoit suspended his license for 45 days and imposed a $450 fine. The due date for payment of the fine was twice put off when Wickham appeared as required and requested additional time to make payment. Finally, on November 28, 1983, Wickham signed a document entitled Release of all Claims in which he agreed to do volunteer work in satisfaction of the fine. However, the form provided that: I understand that in no way am I under any obligation to perform or donate my time, and that I am free to withdraw from this offer at any time, and that I will not be penalized in any way if I withdraw from this offer. Wickham was assigned to do 121 hours of public service work for the sheriff's office. He completed 45½ hours of that work (originally reported as 21½ hours but later corrected) and then failed to do any more, even after the sheriff wrote to him to request that he return to work. On January 24, 1984, the District Court sent Wickham an order to appear on February 13 to prove that he had made a good faith effort to pay the fine. When Wickham appeared as required, Judge Benoit questioned him with regard to his reasons for stopping work. Because he found there was no good reason, Judge Benoit summarily adjudged Wickham in contempt of court, both for non-appearance in regard to the unpaid fine and for non-appearance at the designated job site. He sentenced Wickham to 37½ days in jail in satisfaction of the fine (later reduced when credit was given for additional time worked at the sheriff's office). After serving 11 days Wickham was released on a writ of habeas corpus issued by the Superior Court. The Committee alleges that these facts present another instance in which Judge Benoit failed to observe the most obvious limitations on his power to deprive an individual of his liberty. There is nothing in the law of Maine to authorize a judge to compel public service work as a way of satisfying a civil fine. We do not condone this unauthorized use of judicial power to get a civil defendant to agree to public service work. However, what is particularly serious is Judge Benoit's action in imprisoning Wickham when he declined to work further. The procedure followed was once again grossly deficient to accord Wickham his fundamental rights, and the imposition of a jail sentence to discharge his civil liability was patently unconstitutional. Wickham received no notice of a criminal hearing, nor was he charged with a criminal offense. Judge Benoit's order in fact left him in substantial doubt as to the reason he was being jailed. He was not provided with a lawyer because, Judge Benoit now argues, it was a civil proceeding. But the reason why no right to a lawyer attaches in a civil proceeding is that civil cases do not result in incarceration. [9] Judge Benoit also made no finding whether Wickham was honestly unable to pay the fine. [10] The clear implication from the record is that Wickham was at all times without funds. The putative justification for the incarceration, that Wickham was being held in contempt, is simply not credible. Wickham had appeared in court every time he was ordered to do so. Furthermore, there was no court order requiring him to report to the sheriff's office for work. It was patently unfair of Judge Benoit to treat the agreement as an order of court, for which Wickham could be held in contempt, when the agreement itself imposed no obligation on Wickham. It was obvious that Wickham was not guilty of either civil or criminal contempt. Wickham was jailed for his failure to discharge a civil liability of paying a civil fine, and not as punishment for violation of any court order. In short, a reasonably prudent and competent judge would have found Wickham's incarceration in the circumstances both obviously and seriously wrong. Again, Judge Benoit's action in jailing a defendant in a civil case was so patently unconstitutional as to deserve sanction. His actions in the Wickham case violated Canon 3 A(1) of the Code of Judicial Conduct. We reemphasize that our disapproval of Judge Benoit's actions in jailing the defendants in both the Tessin and the Wickham cases does not arise out of any mere disagreement over sentencing philosophy. At the election of the prosecutor, both Tessin and Wickham had been charged only with the civil traffic infraction of operating under the influence. That infraction carried a maximum fine of $500 and license suspension of 45 days, and no permissible imprisonment. The prosecutor, and not the District Court judge, had exclusive and unreviewable discretion to prosecute an OUI case as a crime or a civil infraction. [11] Once the prosecutor had made his civil election, the only penalty beyond a license suspension that the court was empowered to order was a civil money judgment, collectible by the State only by civil process in the same manner as a money judgment obtained by a private plaintiff. However much a judge may disagree with the district attorney's decision to treat an OUI case as merely a civil traffic infraction, he has no right to use the criminal process of imprisonment to punish a civil defendant. The Maine Legislature, with the concurrence of the Governor, created the system of prosecuting OUI as either a crime or a civil infraction, at the prosecutor's election. [12] That system represents the will of the elected representatives of the people, whose judgment it was that the public interest would thus be served. A judge is not free to disregard the application of any part of the OUI law, however much he or others may disagree with that legislative assessment of the public interest.