Court Opinion

ID: 9563558
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:41:52.977977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:55.201366
License: Public Domain

Nichols, Presiding Judge.
1. The Recorder’s Court of the City of Macon has no jurisdiction to arraign, try and sentence for the offense of driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants (City of Atlanta v. Landers, 212 Ga. 111, 90 SE2d 583), there being a city court for the trial of such offenses in Bibb County where the City of Macon is located. See Clarke v. Johnson, 199 Ga. 163 (33 SE2d 425), construing the amendment of 1937, Art. VI, Sec. VI, Par. II of the Constitution of the State of Georgia of 1877, now Art. VI, Sec. VI, Par. II of the Constitution of the State of Georgia of 1945 (Code Ann. § 2-4102). Whether or not the Recorder’s Court of the City of Macon would have jurisdiction to arraign, try and sentence for the offense of driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants in violation of a city ordinance, under the provisions of § 1 of the Act approved March 16, 1955, amending the Uniform Act Regulating Traffic on Highways (Ga. L. 1955, pp. 736, 737; Code Ann. § 68-1680) is not presented for decision in the present case, it not appearing that the charge upon which the defendant was convicted was the violation of a city ordinance, or that there was such an ordinance.
2. The Director of the Department of Public Safety has jurisdiction of the subject matter of revocation of driver’s licenses upon receiving the certification of the driver’s conviction of the offense of “driving a motor vehicle while under the influence *506of intoxicants” (Ga. L. 1939, pp. 135, 141, as amended by Ga. L. 1943, pp. 196, 201; (Code Ann. § 92A-434)), but no such jurisdiction is conferred where the “certification of conviction” is from a court which is without jurisdiction to try cases involving the offense of “driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants.” To give the Director jurisdiction of the subject matter the court certifying the conviction must have jurisdiction of the subject matter.
Argued June 8, 1965
Decided September 30, 1965
Rehearing denied October 21, 1965.
Adams, O’Neal, Steele, Thornton & Hemingway, H. T. O’Neal, Jr., Bob Slocumb, for plaintiff in error.
Clarence H. Clay, Jr., Solicitor, Tommy C. Mann, contra.
3. Where a person is convicted and sentenced for the offense of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants in a court which is without jurisdiction of such offense, the conviction and sentence is void and a mere nullity (Code §§ 110-701, 110-709); and the revocation of a driver’s license based upon such conviction, being at most merely additional punishment based upon the prior conviction, is also void and a mere nullity and such a revocation will not authorize a conviction for operating a motor vehicle with a revoked license.
4. Upon application of the above rulings to the facts of the present case, the trial judge, to whom the case was submitted upon stipulated facts without the intervention of a jury, erred in finding the defendant guilty of violation of the Act of 1937 (Ga. L. 1937, pp. 322, 352; Code Ann. § 92A-9913).

Judgment reversed.

Felton, C. J., Bell, P. J., Frankum, Jordan and Deen, JJ., concur. Hall, Eberhardt and Pannell, JJ., dissent.