Opinion ID: 1697522
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: License Revocation as Punitive Sanction

Text: In essence, our prior case law has established that a defendant should be advised of the potential direct and immediate consequences of a plea and conviction, but need not be advised of the collateral or indirect consequences. That appears to be a sound and fair rule and that is the rule the Fourth District applied in the decisions we now disapprove. However, today's majority has essentially applied a rule of unintended consequences in seizing upon the particular phrasing of the rule in past cases. For example, in Major, we wrote: We expressly approve the statement set forth in the Third District's opinion in this case: [A] judge is required to inform a defendant only of the direct consequences of his [or her] plea and is under no duty to apprise him [or her] of any collateral consequences. A direct consequence is one that has a definite, immediate, and largely automatic effect on the range of the defendant's punishment. Major, 790 So.2d at 551 (quoting Fox, 659 So.2d at 1327). We approve the less restrictive definition of direct consequence used by Florida's district courts as stated in Zambuto v. State, 413 So.2d 461, 462 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982) (quoting Cuthrell v. Director, Patuxent Institution, 475 F.2d 1364, 1366 (4th Cir.1973)): The distinction between direct and collateral consequences of a plea, while sometimes shaded in the relevant decisions, turns on whether the result represents a definite, immediate and largely automatic effect on the range of the defendant's punishment. Major, 814 So.2d at 431 (footnote omitted). Where the majority and I part ways is in the majority's unsupported and unjustified seizure upon the word punishment in this statement of the rule as having a talismanic effect that overrides the direct and immediate emphasis of the rule and turns the purpose of the rule on its head, i.e., to inform liberally a defendant of the possible sanctions he faces as a consequence of his plea and conviction. This overreliance on the word punishment is flawed in at least two respects: first, in the origins of the rule there is no indication that it was used as a word of limitation or that some other word like sanctions would not have conveyed the same meaning; second, the majority gives the word a hypertechnical and strained meaning that is inconsistent with both the punitive purpose of the Legislature in mandating revocation as an additional sanction for criminal offenses and with our liberal purpose in enacting the plea colloquy rule. It is one thing to finely parse a concept like penalty, punishment, or sanction in the abstract, but quite another to actually draw meaningful lines in real-life situations. Obviously, possession of a valid driver's license is absolutely essential to function in today's society. Try telling a truck driver who has just had his license permanently suspended that he has not been punished; or for that matter, telling a teenager who has been grounded that she is not being punished. [8] By focusing on a narrow, artificial, and hypertechnical concept of punishment, the majority is undermining a process that is intended to be fair and reasonable in being certain that a person is fairly informed of the possible legal consequences of a decision to plead. Adding license revocation, in some instances permanent revocation, as an additional punishment for a drug offense was obviously intended by the Legislature to be punitive. Recognizing how valuable a license to drive is regarded, the Legislature decided this additional sanction would get a drug offender's attention in a most effective way. In effect, the majority is simply ignoring this additional sanction as if it did not exist. The same misconception can be said of the majority's analysis of the word collateral. Collateral, in fact, is used in the judicial system to distinguish direct from indirecta direct consequence can hardly be a collateral consequence. In the context of the issue before us, it is apparent that the Legislature itself has expressly made license revocation a direct rather than collateral sanction of certain criminal convictions, while still retaining it as a collateral sanction in other instances, such as Bolware's case. We should recognize this distinction. Other states have had no difficulty in distinguishing between those collateral statutory schemes, such as assessing points against licensed drivers each time the driver is convicted of a traffic infraction, as compared to statutory schemes that directly mandate suspensions immediately upon a criminal conviction. For example, in Barkley v. State, 724 A.2d 558 (Del.1999), the Delaware Supreme Court held that a statutory mandate for immediate revocation of driving privileges upon a drug conviction is a direct consequence of a criminal plea, unlike the revocation for traffic offenses accomplished through separate collateral administrative proceedings: In our view, the revocation accomplished by the sentencing judge under 21 Del.C. § 4177K is a penalty and, not only a direct consequence of the sentencing, but a necessary and integral part of the sentencing process. Unlike the deportation proceeding implicated in State v. Christie [, 655 A.2d 836 (Del.Super.1994)], Barkley's loss of driving privileges at the time of sentencing was an immediate, automatic and mandatory penalty. .... The State argues that since the State's granting of a license to operate a motor vehicle is a privilege, not a right, the denial of that privilege may not give rise to a claim of lack of due process. The State's position that a driver's license is a privilege is generally correct and its argument relating to the consequences of that status as a privilege may be valid in the context of administrative proceedings leading to license revocation. But, it misses the mark in this case where, for purposes of Rule 11(c) in light of the statutory language, the revocation occurs as an automatic and mandatory penal consequence of the sentencing process. Because the revocation is part of the mandatory minimum penalty under Rule 11(c), as we now hold, the failure to secure the defendant's understanding of that consequence, constitutes a violation of the Rule. Id. at 560-61(emphasis supplied). Just as the State's argument in Barkley was deemed to miss the mark, so does the majority's flawed analysis here. Similarly, in Hall v. Gainsheimer, 137 F.App'x 866, 2005 U.S.App. Lexis 12823 (6th Cir. June 24, 2005), the Sixth Circuit, in reviewing an Ohio conviction, explained: As a judge-imposed punishment made part of Hall's sentence, the suspension of Hall's driver's license constituted a direct consequence of Hall's guilty plea. It was not a collateral consequence to be imposed, if at all, by an agency or party external to the court. See El-Nobani v. United States, 287 F.3d 417, 421 (6th Cir.) (explaining that [a] collateral consequence is one that `remains beyond the control and responsibility of the district court in which that conviction was entered') (quoting United States v. Gonzalez, 202 F.3d 20, 27 (1st Cir.2000)), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1024, 123 S.Ct. 535, 154 L.Ed.2d 435 (2002); cf. Kratt v. Garvey, 342 F.3d 475 (6th Cir.2003) (holding that revocation of a defendant's pilot's license was a collateral consequence of the defendant's guilty plea to drug charges where the revocation was effected by the Federal Aviation Administration more than a year and a half after the defendant pleaded guilty before the court). Because the suspension of Hall's driver's license was to be a direct consequence of his plea, effected by the trial court as required by Ohio law, the trial court was required to advise Hall that his plea would result in such suspension. Id. at 869 (emphasis supplied); see also Corley v. Dep't of Motor Vehicles, 222 Cal. App.3d 72, 271 Cal.Rptr. 406, 408 (1990) (revocation of license by trial court mandated by statute and therefore is direct consequence). These decisions recognize the obvious distinction between Bolware's case, where the suspension was indirect and collateral, and the direct consequence cases decided by the Fourth District. In contrast to these decisions on point, the majority relies upon decisions that can readily be distinguished. See, e.g., Smith v. City of Gainesville, 93 So.2d 105, 107 (Fla.1957) (upholding constitutionality of statute authorizing municipal courts to revoke drivers' licenses under designated circumstances). Just as Bolware's case involves no challenge to the constitutionality of the statutory mandate for license revocation, Smith had absolutely nothing to do with the rights of a defendant to be informed of the potential consequences of a decision to plead in a criminal case. The fact that license suspensions may, in some instances, be invoked for public safety is essentially a non sequitur. Surely all of our criminal laws are enacted for public safety. The authors of Smith would no doubt be shocked to learn that we would be using the decision as a limitation on what defendants must be told about the consequences of a decision to plead in a criminal case. The other significant decision relied upon by the majority, Major, is the very one in which we quoted with approval from the Fourth District's opinion in Daniels, the same decision we abandon today. In Major, we held that a trial court need not advise a defendant that a plea in a pending case may have sentence-enhancing consequences upon a conviction for a crime that might be committed in the future. Such a holding is readily distinguishable from the issue we face today. Criminal registration requirements are similarly distinguishable as nonpunitive collateral consequences of a conviction that simply reflect an offender's status. Florida and other states have long had laws requiring certain convicted felons to register with the law enforcement agency near the felon's residence. Sexual offender registration has been added to that list. See State v. Partlow, 840 So.2d 1040, 1043 (Fla.2003). The other decisions cited by the majority are similarly distinguishable. Under the majority's gotcha holding, we can only imagine a defendant's startled reaction when, upon deciding to plea to the charges, she is told about all of the possible consequences of her plea except for the permanent revocation of driving privileges that the trial court then surprises the defendant with after accepting the plea. This is precisely the situation addressed and condemned by the Fourth District in Whipple that we approve today. Surely, it strikes at the core of fairness and due process to hold that a defendant need not be told of such a serious sanction the sentencing court is statutorily mandated to directly and immediately impose upon conviction. In my view it defies common sense and is pure sophistry to suggest that the direct and immediate imposition of a permanent license revocation by a sentencing court is not a sufficient sanction to require notice to the defendant. The majority's holding will, of course, mean that defendants will be less informed as to the serious consequences of a plea, thereby undermining the essential purpose of the plea colloquy and ultimately the voluntary character of the plea. The integrity and reliability of the entire plea process is undermined by such hide the ball tactics.