Court Opinion

ID: 9706614
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:47:38.032391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:41:27.534468
License: Public Domain

Per Curiam.
Philip M. Young was arrested for driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol (DUI), in violation of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 39-669.07 (Cum. Supp. 1992) (now codified at Neb. Rev. Stat. § 60-6,196 (Reissue 1993)). Young was convicted of that offense by a jury in the Douglas County Court. On appeal, the district court for Douglas County affirmed the conviction. The Nebraska Court of Appeals in turn affirmed the district court. State v. Young, 3 Neb. App. 539, 530 N.W.2d 269 (1995). We affirm.
Young was arrested at his home on suspicion of DUI on April 16, 1993, following a confrontation with another motorist. When the. arresting officer arrived, Young had already parked his car in his garage and allegedly had been drinking inside his home. The arresting officer administered a field sobriety test to Young; Young failed the test. The officer then took Young to the *541police station where he administered an Intoxilyzer test. Because Young’s breath alcohol level registered in excess of .10, the arresting officer issued Young a citation for DUI. The officer also impounded Young’s driver’s license pursuant to Neb. Rev. Stat. § 39-669.15 (Cum. Supp. 1992) (now codified at Neb. Rev. Stat. § 60-6,205 (Reissue 1993)), which provides for administrative license revocation (ALR) in addition to criminal prosecution and sentencing.
Young petitioned for a hearing with the Department of Motor Vehicles. At his hearing, Young presented evidence that he was not operating his vehicle at the time that he was intoxicated. Persuaded by Young’s showing, the director of the Department of Motor Vehicles restored Young’s license. Young then appeared before the county court for Douglas County to defend against the criminal DUI charge. Young moved to dismiss the charge, arguing that prosecution for DUI following his exoneration at the ALR hearing violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Nebraska Constitution and the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Alternatively, Young argued that principles of collateral estoppel bar the State from relitigating a claim in county court after losing on the merits at the administrative level. The Douglas County Court denied Young’s motion. Young appeals his conviction, raising the same issues in this court.
Young first asserts that ALR constitutes punishment and that, as such, the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment bars any criminal prosecution and punishment following an ALR hearing. This argument stems from the question of whether a sanction such as ALR is remedial or punitive in purpose, raised by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 109 S. Ct. 1892, 104 L. Ed. 2d 487 (1989). Under Young’s interpretation of Halper, a statute whose purpose is partially punitive must necessarily constitute punishment, thereby triggering the protections of the Double Jeopardy Clause.
This assignment of error must fail on the basis of our own recent decision in Hansen v. State, ante p. 177, 542 N.W.2d 424 (1996). We found in Hansen that the purpose of ALR is to protect the public from the health and safety hazards of drunk *542driving by quickly getting DUI offenders off the road. At the same time, the ALR statutes also further a purpose of deterring other Nebraskans from driving drunk. Hansen, supra. These dual purposes do not offend the Supreme Court’s holding in Halper that “under the Double Jeopardy Clause a defendant who already has been punished in a criminal prosecution may not be subjected to an additional civil sanction to the extent that the second sanction may not fairly be characterized as remedial, but only as a deterrent or retribution.” 490 U.S. at 448-49.
The fact that a statute designed primarily to serve remedial purposes secondarily serves the exemplary purpose of general deterrence does not require a conclusion that the statute results in punishment for double jeopardy purposes. Hansen, supra. Since we found ALR to serve primarily a remedial purpose, the prohibition of multiple punishments enunciated in Halper does not apply to Young’s case. This assignment of error fails.
Young’s second argument is predicated upon his success at the ALR hearing. Young persuaded the ALR hearing officer that he had achieved statutory intoxication level in the safety of his home by “chugging” five or six shots from a vessel of whiskey in the spare moments between his arrival at home and the arrival of the arresting officer. Young complains that his criminal trial constituted relitigation of a settled claim, and he argues that the doctrine of collateral estoppel bars such relitigation by the State.
Collateral estoppel arises in a criminal case with the existence of four conditions: (1) the identical issue was decided in a prior action, (2) that action resulted in a valid final judgment on the merits, (3) the party against whom the rule is applied was a party or in privity with a party to the prior action, and (4) the parties had the opportunity to fully and fairly litigate the issue in the prior action. State v. Gerdes, 233 Neb. 528, 446 N.W.2d 224 (1989). In relying on collateral estoppel in relation to the constitutional protection against double jeopardy in a present proceeding, a criminal defendant has the burden to prove that the particular issue which the State seeks to relitigate was necessarily and conclusively determined in the prior proceeding. Id.
*543Under Gerdes, Young must show that the issue of whether he was operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol was determined at his ALR hearing and that his ALR hearing operates as a judicial proceeding. We acknowledge that the ALR hearing officer found that Young had parked the car before he began drinking. That finding, however, cannot deprive the county court of its jurisdiction to hear Young’s criminal charges.
The constitutional basis for collateral estoppel in a criminal case is founded on the principle that the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits multiple prosecutions and multiple punishments. Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S. Ct. 1189, 25 L. Ed. 2d 469 (1970). Because we held in Hansen, supra, that ALR does not amount to punishment, Young has no constitutional basis for his collateral estoppel challenge. The absence of double jeopardy exposure forecloses the application of collateral estoppel against the State in its prosecution of DUI after an ALR hearing because only remedial sanctions could have been imposed at that civil traffic proceeding. See State v. Higa, 79 Haw. 1, 897 P.2d 928 (1995).
Furthermore, the doctrines of collateral estoppel and res judicata are not applicable when the burden of persuasion is different in the subsequent proceeding. State v. Yelli, 247 Neb. 785, 530 N.W.2d 250 (1995). In an ALR hearing, the State establishes its prima facie case for license revocation by submitting the arresting officer’s report. The burden of proof thereafter rests solely with the motorist, who must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the requirements for ALR are not satisfied. McPherrin v. Conrad, 248 Neb. 561, 537 N.W.2d 498 (1995). Conversely, the burden in the criminal proceeding rests solely with the State, which must prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the charged offense. State v. McHenry, 247 Neb. 167, 525 N.W.2d 620 (1995).
In Yelli, supra, we applied this reasoning to find that the judgment in a civil paternity action is not binding under the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel in a subsequent criminal prosecution for criminal nonsupport of children. The same difference in burdens constitutes the fatal flaw in Young’s preclusion arguments. The process by which the issue of Young’s intoxication was adjudicated in the civil action cannot *544be reconstructed on the basis of a new and different burden at the criminal trial. See Yelli, supra. Given that the more serious issues of criminal guilt or innocence are not at stake in a civil administrative proceeding, the difference in burdens also indicates that the State lacked a full and fair opportunity to litigate its case against Young in the ALR hearing. See State v. Bishop, 113 N.M. 732, 832 P.2d 793 (N.M. App. 1992).
Were we to grant Young’s plea for preclusion, we would violate not only our own precedent of collateral estoppel, but also sound policy reasons for leaving a degree of separation between the civil ALR hearing and criminal DUI prosecutions. Were this court to force the State to litigate thoroughly every element of DUI at an ALR hearing, such a holding would seriously undermine the Legislature’s goal of providing an informal and prompt review of the decision to suspend a driver’s license. See Bishop, supra. ALR hearings would quickly evolve into full-blown trials at which the State must fully litigate every possible issue regarding a motorist’s actions, thereby losing their effectiveness in removing potentially dangerous drivers from the Nebraska highways within 1 month of their offense.
Because Nebraska’s ALR proceedings serve mostly remedial functions, Young’s subsequent criminal prosecution is not barred by principles of double jeopardy or, accordingly, principles of. collateral estoppel.
Affirmed.