Court Opinion

ID: 9720812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:42:02.693621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:21.459762
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE COOK, specially concurring: The Driver License Compact, to which Illinois is a party, addresses the effect one state must give to the actions of another state. If one state revokes a driver’s license, is the driver thereby prevented from receiving a license in any state until the revocation is cancelled in the first state? At the other extreme, if one state revokes a driver’s license, may other states ignore that revocation and issue a license whenever they choose to? The answer is found in section 6 — 704(2) of the Code. A lifetime revocation in one state is binding on other states, but only for a period of one year. That is not to say that other states must issue a license after one year has expired. “¡AJfter the expiration of one year from the date the license was revoked, such person may make application for a new license if permitted by law.” 625 ILCS 5/6 — 704(2) (West 2004). The words, “if permitted by law,” mean if the new license would be permitted under the law of the state where the application is made, not the state where the license was revoked. Girard, 356 Ill. App. 3d at 17, 826 N.E.2d at 523; State v. Vargason, 607 N.W2d 691, 697 (Iowa 2000). Section 6 — 704(2) does not require Illinois to issue a license, after the expiration of one year, to a person with four DUI convictions whose out-of-state license was revoked. Girard, 356 Ill. App. 3d at 21, 826 N.E.2d at 525-26 (“Under sections 6 — 208(b) and (b)(4), the legislature restricted the Secretary from permitting applications for individuals with four or more DUI convictions”). North Carolina, the licensing authority in the state where application is made, is required to honor Illinois’s revocation of Gruchow’s license for a period of one year. After that time, the decision whether to issue a license belongs to North Carolina, not to Illinois. Gruchow has no cause of action against the Illinois Secretary of State. A different result may follow if Gruchow’s license had only been suspended. North Carolina may be required to honor a period of suspension beyond one year. North Carolina shall not issue a license if “[t]he applicant has held such a license, but the same has been suspended by reason, in whole or in part, of a violation and if such suspension period has not terminated.” 625 ILCS 5/6 — 704(1) (West 2004).