Opinion ID: 1992117
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: appearing to qualify as punishment

Text: For the Legislature to excise its deterrent language from the statute would not remove the underlying deterrent purpose of the statute. Halper holds that a civil penalty should bear a rational relationship to the goal of compensating what the government has lost, and should not [appear] to qualify as `punishment' in the plain meaning of the word. 490 U.S. at 449, 109 S.Ct. at 1902. Even assuming the legitimacy of the remedial purpose of ALR, this penalty still appears to qualify as punishment in ways that overwhelm the goal of protecting the public from drunk drivers. Austin v. U.S., 509 U.S. 602, 113 S.Ct. 2801, 125 L.Ed.2d 488 (1993), in addition to clarifying the controlling language of Halper, provides an exemplary list of characteristics of punishment that shows that ALR indeed appears to qualify as punishment. In Austin, the U.S. Supreme Court found civil forfeiture under certain federal statutes to qualify as punishment on the basis of these characteristics. The majority's rejection of Austin, however, averted any need to address those characteristics in its opinion. The first Austin characteristic is the historical understanding of the sanction in question. The Austin Court considered whether, at the time the Eighth Amendment was ratified, civil forfeiture was understood at least in part as punishment. 509 U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2806. Notably, the Court consistently qualified the requirement of a historical understanding in punishment to be no more than at least in part. Id. at ___ and ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2806 and 2810. That some remedial purposes may have been advanced by civil forfeiture did not, for the Austin Court, negate the fact that forfeiture also advanced concurrently a punitive purpose. The U.S. Supreme Court's recognition of historical concurrent remedial and punitive purposes is important to ALR analysis. Unlike forfeiture, ALR as a sanction is not replete with centuries of common-law history. Although this court has found that revocation of a driver's license under the point system is designed to protect the public, Durfee v. Ress, 163 Neb. 768, 81 N.W.2d 148 (1957), our case law does not address whether ALR is historically understood, at least in part, as punishment. Revocation under the point system, however, is not in question under ALR. Notwithstanding ALR, DUI offenders historically have been subject to revocation through multiple mechanisms: the point system and judicial revocation under statutes criminalizing DUI. Neb.Rev.Stat. § 39-669.07(2) (Cum.Supp.1992) (now codified at Neb.Rev.Stat. § 60-6,196(2) (Reissue 1993)). As ALR complements both mechanisms, the history of judicial revocation is as instructive as that of point system revocation. This court has not distinguished the purpose of judicial revocation from other instruments of punishment meted out for a DUI conviction. See, e.g., Gembler v. City of Seward, 136 Neb. 196, 285 N.W. 542 (1939) (finding city had power to punish DUI, where punishment included license revocation). License revocation for DUI has been imposed historically both to further remedial aims and to punish the offender. The second Austin characteristic is the provision of an innocence defense in the statute providing for sanction. Such a defense serves to focus the provisions on the culpability of the [defendant] in a way that makes them look more like punishment, not less. 509 U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2811. This characteristic is relevant to Nebraska's ALR statutes. A motorist facing ALR has available only those defenses he would raise prior to or at his criminal trial. The motorist circumvents ALR entirely only by proving at an ALR hearing that he did not violate § 39-669.07 (now § 60-6,196), or that his arrest was unlawful for reasons relating to Fourth Amendment criminal procedure. § 39-669.15(6)(c) (now § 60-6,205(6)(c)). Once imposed, ALR terminates prematurely only if the motorist prevails at his criminal trial or if the State decides not to prosecute. Neb.Rev. Stat. § 39-669.16(4) (Cum.Supp.1992) (now codified at Neb.Rev.Stat. § 60-6,206(4) (Reissue 1993)). The Austin Court next pointed to the fact that, in the example of the federal forfeiture statutes, Congress had tied forfeiture directly to the commission of certain crimes. Similarly, in § 39-669.15 (now § 60-6,205), the Legislature tied ALR directly to commission of the crime of DUI. ALR is triggered only by proof that DUI has been committed or, if the motorist refuses to submit to a sobriety test, by the arresting officer's reasonable belief that DUI has been committed. § 39-669.15 (now § 60-6,205(2) and (3)). The sanction is imposed only after the driver has been arrested, and its duration lengthens if the motorist's license has been previously revoked for the same crime. § 39-669.16 (now § 60-6,206(1)). That ALR is irrefutably linked to commission of a misdemeanor under the Nebraska Criminal Code, by plan and design of the Legislature, only strengthens the argument that ALR appears to qualify as `punishment.' ALR appears to qualify as `punishment' from the words and operation of the statutes in more ways than Austin enumerates as characteristics of punishment. First, ALR can outlast the sentence resulting from the motorist's criminal trial. Were the trial judge to sentence a DUI first offender to probation or suspend the sentence, the motorist would incur a 60-day judicial revocation; yet, ALR would remain in effect for the full 90-day period notwithstanding the sentence. Were the trial judge to sentence a DUI second offender to probation or suspend the sentence, the motorist would incur a 6-month judicial revocation; yet, ALR would remain in effect for a full year. Given that the stated purpose of ALR is to remove drunk drivers from the road more swiftly than the criminal trial process might, it is difficult to understand how that purpose is furthered by keeping a motorist off the road after the criminal sentence ends. Second, ALR limits the motorist's ability to obtain employment driving privileges pursuant to Neb.Rev.Stat. § 60-4,130 (Cum. Supp.1992). An employment permit is available to any motorist whose license is revoked for offenses, including drunken driving, enumerated in the point system. ALR renders the employment permit statute inapplicable to only DUI offenders, without showing as much remedial concern for drivers whose habits are less publicly reviled, but no less dangerous. Motorists whose licenses have been revoked under the point system for violations, including willful reckless driving, habitually speeding more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, and motor vehicle homicide, can obtain an employment permit immediately upon revocation of their driver's licenses. Neb.Rev.Stat. § 60-4,129(1) (Cum. Supp.1992). Currently, under § 60-6,206(2), a first-time DUI offender, however, cannot obtain an employment permit for the first 30 days of revocation; for any subsequent DUI offense, the motorist cannot obtain an employment permit at all (previously 60 days under § 39-669.16(2)). It is axiomatic that the State should have the same remedial interest in swiftly removing from the roads a motorist who drives recklessly enough times to incur revocation, or who kills another person as a result of grossly negligent or reckless driving, as it does in swiftly removing a first-time DUI offender. It is further axiomatic that dangerous speeding and reckless driving are committed in transit to and from work more commonly than is DUI. Yet, the Legislature returns to the roads all violators of the Nebraska Rules of the Road except drunk drivers. This discrepancy can be explained only as an attempt to deter Nebraskans from driving drunk with the threat that motorists will lose the ability to drive to work or, if their employment requires a valid driver's license, their livelihoods. The motorist's loss of transportation to, from, and in the course of employment is particularly pernicious beyond Lincoln and Omaha and certainly in Nebraska's more rural counties, where public transportation is largely if not entirely unavailable. Even were it available, public transportation would be of little utility to a farmer or rancher for whom the use of a car or truck is simply a practical necessity. While this sanction may well be appropriate within the confines of a criminal sentence imposed by a trial judge, its inclusion in an ostensibly remedial sanction absolutely makes ALR [appear] to qualify as `punishment.' Whether the cumulative impact of these punitive aspects of ALR is disproportionate either to the offense or to the costs to the State created by drunk driving is irrelevant to our determination of whether a sanction appears to qualify as punishment under Halper. Although in Halper, the civil sanction imposed was much greater than the actual costs of Halper's fraud, the Court did not articulate a proportionality test by which a sanction is punishment if it is greater than the offense. Rather, a sanction is punishment if it serves a deterrent purpose, which was true of the fine in Halper and which is true of the punitive aspects of ALR. Proportionality analysis determines not whether punishment exists, but whether it is excessive; in fact, proportionality is used to determine whether the Eighth Amendment the constitutional protection under which Austin arosehas been violated. See Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 103 S.Ct. 3001, 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983). Given that, it is particularly disingenuous for the majority to adopt a line of Eighth Amendment analysis which is inapposite to Double Jeopardy Clause analysis, while rejecting the clarification of punishment in Austin (which never reached the proportionality question) merely because Austin is an Eighth Amendment case by legal taxonomy. The U.S. Supreme Court in Halper did not ask whether a sanction appears to qualify as punishment disproportionate to the offense, but whether it appears to qualify as punishment at all. In the case of ALR, that question should have been answered in the affirmative. There is nothing unconstitutional per se in a sentence providing for lengthy license revocation, or for fines and imprisonment that, without violating the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment, make drunk driving a prohibitively expensive endeavor, nor in a criminal sentence that denies an employment permit to any DUI offender in Nebraska, irrespective of one's rural predilections or dependency upon a motor vehicle for one's livelihood. When these sanctions are imposed as a condition of one singular punishment for one offense of DUI, such a punishment would not offend the Double Jeopardy Clause. What is unconstitutional per se is the imposition of any of these deterrent provisions under the auspice of remedial sanctions that can fairly be said to serve the purpose of punishment. The clearest holdings of Halper, ignored by the majority, distinguish retribution and deterrence from nonpunitive objectives and prohibit the former from creeping into the latter. For even the most heinous crimes and the cruelest offenses, the State must concentrate its powers of punishment into a singular punitive effort. Under this court's interpretation of Halper, the State can deter its citizens from crime by inviting each concerned agency of the State in turn to unleash its powers upon an offender, each acting under the pretext of remedy, such that the offender never knows when his debt to society is finally paid in full. My dissent does not stand for the idea that the Legislature should surrender its war against drunk driving, but only that the casualties of this war must not include the Bill of Rights.