Court Opinion

ID: 9738455
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:53:27.715853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:06.197938
License: Public Domain

CRIPPEN, Judge
(concurring specially).
Our analysis of the character of implied consent proceedings in this case represents a holding of first impression in Minnesota. Prior decisions have recognized the remedial purpose of this sanction, but only in the context of a larger due process analysis, where it was not necessary to examine the punitive characteristics of revocation. Heddan v. Dirkswager, 336 N.W.2d 54, 62-63 (Minn.1983). In such a limited context, the supreme court has also recognized the remedial purposes of our criminal laws. Melby v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 367 N.W.2d 527, 528 (Minn.1985) (recognizing the remedial purpose of Minn.Stat. § 169.121, the criminal statute on driving under the influence). As Halper demonstrates, a decision in the case before us requires that we engage in “a particularized assessment of the penalty imposed and the purposes that the penalty may fairly be said to serve.” Halper, 490 U.S. at 448, 109 S.Ct. at 1901. “Simply put,” we must determine whether “the sanction as *606applied in the individual case serves the goals of punishment.” Id. at 448, 109 S.Ct. at 1901-02.
I concur in the conclusion that the 90 day-revocations of Joseph Burns and Randy Hanson do not fall within the narrow prescription of Halper. These revocations can “fairly be characterized as remedial”, and not only as a “deterrent or retribution.” Id., at 449, 109 S.Ct. at 1902. Significantly, unlike the civil penalties that were permitted in part and upset in part by the court in Halper, we are dealing with an indivisible sanction, the revocation of driver licenses. Looking at the revocation overall, its dominant effect may fairly be said to be the remedial purpose of keeping unsafe drivers off the highways.
But our analysis of the predominant purpose for license revocations should not minimize the punitive characteristics of current revocation law and should not cloud the tenuous nature of our decision to spare these penalties from the attack on double jeopardy grounds. License revocation has always had characteristics of punishment, and a continuing series of amendments make it evident that this purpose is expanding.
The trial court in Bums and both drivers have presented abundant indications of punitive purposes lying behind the revocation statute. Some of these are especially important. So, for example, it is significant that the Minnesota Supreme Court, even while reciting the prospect for keeping unsafe drivers off the road, recognized the equally important purposes of revocation law to deter drunken driving and to induce consent for chemical tests. Heddan, 336 N.W.2d at 62. Also, the Minnesota Supreme Court has found that in most instances, revocation remedies have “the same impact as the traditional criminal sanctions of a fine and imprisonment.” Friedman v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 473 N.W.2d 828, 832 (Minn.1991). “Impact” is both imposed and felt. We go well beyond the driver’s perspective to recognize that a sanction that resembles imprisonment serves a legislative aim to punish. See Halper, 490 U.S. at 447 n. 7, 109 S.Ct. at 1901 n. 7 (denying that the analysis of remedial and punitive purposes must be made from the defendant’s perspective).
Periodic amendments have served to increase the punitive character of the implied consent statute. Pertinent to application of the statute in these cases, the legislature in 1992 provided that limited licenses could not be granted for the first 15 days of a revocation period. 1992 Minn.Laws, c. 570, Art. 1, § 23; MinmStat. § 171.30, subd. 2a(l) (1994). The trial court in Bums cited legislative history showing that the 15 day “hard revocation” provision was part of an effort to crack down on violators. The trial court also referenced an administrator’s testimony before the legislature that the amendment would make sure violators suffered a deterrent.
There is a tendency in analyzing this case to look at Halper as a new legal development, and to ask how it affects Minnesota’s historic effort to employ driver license revocations as a means to improve public safety. But there is nothing new about Halper, the case represents a fundamental part of American law. The newer development is the proliferation of multiple penalties, sometimes oblivious to the basic protection against double jeopardy. In the instance of Minnesota’s efforts to deal with drunken driving, a legislative choice for more severe sanctions has been evident in the implied consent laws at least as much as in amendments of the governing criminal statutes.
Zeal for the revocation remedy creates the risk that we have already erred in approving the current 90 day revocation, and that the implied consent law may be even more vulnerable to double jeopardy scrutiny in its other applications or in the event of still further amendments. It is certainly for the legislature to decide the severity of penalties for dangerous misconduct, but their prerogative may depend on the choice to put all penalties in a single package, rather than a series of sanctions for the same conduct. See Halper, 490 U.S. at 450, 109 S.Ct. at 1903 (noting that the Court’s decision did not preclude the government from seeking and obtaining both civil and criminal penalties in the same proceeding.)