Court Opinion

ID: 9597124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:55:36.426766+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:04.869687
License: Public Domain

Evans, Judge,
concurring specially.
Following a 5-car collision, the defendant received a traffic citation for following too closely. She pleaded not guilty in the City Court of Atlanta, but was found guilty and a fine was imposed. The trial judge then made inquiry as to whether defendant carried liability insurance. Upon learning she did not, he suspended her driver’s license indefinitely until such time as she paid all damages.
Motion in arrest of judgment, motion for new trial, and extraordinary motion for review and reconsideration were made by defendant. Motion to withdraw these motions was made but the lower court denied the withdrawal request because it appeared that her license was suspended for 30 days and not indefinitely, and the license had been returned to the defendant. Apparently the trial court picked up her license for the second time. The court then considered her motion in arrest of judgment, motion for new trial, etc., and denied same and kept her driver’s license as indefinitely suspended under Code Ann. § 92A-9908. Defendant appeals this last order.
The majority opinion reverses, holding that the lower court was without authority to take up her license, not on constitutional grounds, but because Code Ann. § 27-2711 (7) does not allow the imposition of restitution as *361a condition in criminal cases as to the amendment in dispute, unless the same has been adjudicated.
I take the view that Code Ann. § 92A-9908 has been repealed and authority for taking up her license is now exclusively vested in the Department of Public Safety; thus the lower court was without authority to take up the license. As the statute repealing Code Ann. § 92A-9908 was remedial in nature, as was the statute that was repealed, the lower court was without authority to do what it did.
I therefore agree with the reversal by the majority, but not with all that is said in the opinion. I concur in the judgment only.