Court Opinion

ID: 9557805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 16:57:48.287845+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:14.128606
License: Public Domain

GORDON, Justice
(specially concurring).
I agree with the result in this case but limit my concurrence to the facts herein. Certainly, the Department should have the power to suspend an operator’s license, without a prior evidentiary hearing, when the driver has pled guilty to driving while intoxicated and has not appealed his conviction of that charge. However, it is not uncommon for a person accused of driving while intoxicated to enter a plea of guilty to the charge in the Justice of the Peace Court or Magistrate’s Court and then exercise his right of appeal to the Superior Court in order to have his case tried by a lawyer-trained judge and an eight person jury rather than a non-lawyer trained judge and a six person jury. A.R.S. § 28—446A(8) makes no provision for such an occurrence and would apparently allow the Department to suspend the license of an operator or require his class attendance before a final adjudication of the driver’s rights even though the appeal process might take, six months or more.
I reserve my opinion as to the constitutionality of a prehearing exercise of departmental powers in such circumstances and, also, in cases where the suspension or class attendance requirement is invoked prior to a hearing for any other reason listed under A.R.S. § 28-446A.
I also feel that the distinction made in the majority opinion between a chauffeur’s or commercial license and a plain operator’s license may be meaningless in a case where *205an individual’s ability to hold a job is dependent upon his or her being able to drive an automobile under an operator’s license, A thirty-day delay for a post-suspension hearing may not be sufficiently timely to avoid the loss of his employment.