|
May 24, 2002
|
State
Supreme Court reverses traffic
jurisdiction ruling
By Jeff Armstrong
In a 4-3 decision the Minnesota Supreme Court last week
reversed the judgment of an appellate court panel in State v. Busse, ruling the state does in fact
have jurisdiction to enforce driving after cancellation charges against
tribal
members within reservation boundaries in certain circumstances.
Although the high court failed to alter its holding in Stone
that no state driver’s license can be required of tribal members on a
reservation,
it determined that courts could consider the cause of the cancellation
to
evaluate whether a serious public safety issue was involved which could
trigger
state jurisdiction.
“[I]n Stone…we cautioned against adopting a rigid framework
that attempts to characterize all driving-related statutes as civil or
criminal,” the majority held. “Thus, looking at the underlying basis
for a
license revocation or, in this case, cancellation, is not prohibited
when
determining whether the offense involves heightened public policy
concerns.”
The supreme court had
considered and rejected virtually the same argument in State v.
Johnson,
in which driving after revocation was found beyond the scope of state
authority
on reservation lands.
“As each offense is triggered by different and unrelated
conduct, the issue might then arise whether fairness should dictate
that the
nature of the subsequent offense, for purposes of the Stone
analysis,
not be measured by the nature of the prior offense, because if it were
the
offender could be subject to being sanctioned twice for the prior
offense,” the
court ruled in Johnson.
In its latest ruling, the court reasoned that its statement
in Johnson was merely an abstract consideration.
“Using tentative language, we simply raised the question
whether the issue might arise whether fairness
precludes
considering the underlying offense because the offender could
be subject
to being sanctioned twice for the prior offense,” the majority wrote.
Basing its ruling on the assumption, contested by the
dissenting justices, that license cancellation can only be applied to
multiple
DUI offenders, as was the case with Busse.
“[T]he offense of driving after cancellation as inimical to
public safety implicates the necessarily greater concern regarding a
person who
repeatedly (by statute, at least three times) violated Minnesota’s
driving
under the influence laws, and yet continues to drive. The legislature
and the
commissioner have determined that such persons pose a continuing hazard
to
public safety on Minnesota roads and should have their driving
privileges
revoked or cancelled,” the court determined.
Significantly, Myron Busse, Jr. was not even driving when
questioned by a Clearwater County Deputy who had seen him driving
earlier that
day, nor was it alleged that he was drinking. Questioned as a passenger
in the
car, he admitted driving previously in the belief that such conduct was
outside
of state jurisdiction. After the district court asserted jurisdiction,
Busse
mistakenly pleaded guilty as a means to further his appeal, rather than
putting
forward his intended not guilty stipulation of facts as provided in Lothenbach.
Dissenting justice Russell Anderson, joined by justices Page
and Stringer, argued that the court should be bound by its logic in Johnson
to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. Anderson further contended that
the state
failed to prove as an essential element of the crime that a state
license was
required for Busse to drive on the reservation, which it could not do
consistently with Stone. Because he fully intended to submit a Lothenbach
plea, Busse’s inadvertent guilty plea should not serve to waive his
right to
challenge the factual basis for his conviction, Anderson wrote.
“State statutes requiring a driver’s license to operate any
motor vehicle on the streets and highways within the state do not apply
to
tribal members on the reservation…Such licensure decisions fit squarely
in the
civil/regulatory arena. Because the state cannot prove that operation
of the
motor vehicle involved in this offense required a driver’s license, the
state
cannot prove an essential element of the offense and the charge must be
dismissed,” wrote Anderson. |
|
|
|
