Court Opinion

ID: 9553118
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:22:29.196927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:29:44.757455
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Justice,
specially concurring.
I concur in a substantial portion of the Court’s opinion and in the result obtained because I view the principal thrust of the appeal to be from the suspension of Ankney’s driver’s license by the court. Thereby the driver’s license of Ankney was suspended by a neutral, unbiased judicial officer upon the basis of probable cause. Although such suspension occurred without the availability of a hearing to Ankney, I agree that such was not a deprivation of due process since the State’s interest in protecting the public is overriding and Ankney thereafter had an opportunity for a timely post suspension hearing.
If, however, the focus of the appeal had been the police officer’s immediate seizure of Ankney’s driver’s license upon refusal to take the evidentiary test for alcohol concentration, I would have considerable concern with the result obtained by the majority. Clearly, our statute, I.C. § 49-352,1 authorized such immediate seizure by an arresting police officer. The majority opinion would appear to suggest the validation of such an immediate seizure by an arresting officer based on Mackey v. Montrym, 443 U.S. 1, 99 S.Ct. 2612, 61 L.Ed.2d 321 (1979), and Dixon v. Love, 431 U.S. 105, 97 S.Ct. 1723, 52 L.Ed.2d 172 (1977). I suggest that neither of those opinions of the United States Supreme Court support the validity of a statute permitting such immediate seizure of a valuable property right by an arresting police officer. Rather, in Mackey, the registrar of motor vehicles in Massachusetts was statutorily authorized to suspend a motor vehicle license when a driver refused to take a breath analysis test and a police officer before whom such a refusal was made prepared a written report under oath, endorsed by a third person who witnessed the refusal, setting forth the grounds for which the person had been arrested and which report was endorsed by the police chief.
In Dixon, the Illinois Secretary of State was empowered to suspend drivers’ licenses without a prior hearing in certain circumstances. The basis for the suspension was the Secretary of State having received notice that Love had been convicted of three driving charges.
I suggest that neither of those cases provide any authority for the validation of a statute which authorizes the peremptory seizure by a field police officer of a valuable property right without action by a neutral and detached official, be it judicial or otherwise.

. I.C. § 49-352 was repealed by S.L.1984, ch. 22, § 1, effective March 1, 1984.