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Hernandez v. Department of Motor Vehicles10/22/1981
SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA
L.A. No. 31345
1981.CA.40230 ; 634 P.2d 917; 177 Cal. Rptr. 566; 30 Cal. 3d 70
October 22, 1981
ERNESTO GONZALES HERNANDEZ, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT,
v.
DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES, DEFENDANT AND RESPONDENT
Superior Court of Los Angeles County, No. SWC 46311, George M. Dell, Judge.
Owen P. Rafferty and Philip A. Rafferty for Plaintiff and Appellant.
George Deukmejian, Attorney General, and Martin H. Milas, Deputy Attorney General, for Defendant and Respondent.
Opinion by Tobriner, J., with Richardson, J., Tamura, J., and Ashby, J., concurring. Separate concurring opinion by Newman, J. Separate dissenting opinion by Mosk, J., with Bird, C. J., concurring.
Tobriner
Since 1966, section 13353 of the Vehicle Code -- California's "implied consent" law -- has provided for a six-month suspension of an individual's driver's license when the individual, after having been lawfully arrested for drunk driving and fully informed of his rights, refuses to submit to any one of three statutorily prescribed chemical tests which are designed to provide scientifically measurable evidence as to the degree of the driver's intoxication at the time of his arrest. Past cases have upheld the constitutionality of section 13353 against claims that the statute (1) violates the driver's privilege against self-incrimination, (2) authorizes an unreasonable search or seizure, (3) denies equal protection to variously defined classes, and (4) fails to satisfy procedural due process requirements.
Undaunted by this wealth of authority confirming the validity of the statute, plaintiff in the instant case urges our court to strike down the statute as, in essence, a violation of "substantive due process." In support of his argument, plaintiff maintains that the "right to drive" is a "fundamental constitutional right" under the California Constitution, comparable in status, for example, to the constitutional right of free speech or freedom of religion, so that legislative enactments which limit an individual's freedom to drive are to be subjected to "strict scrutiny" by the judiciary. Relying on precedents arising primarily in the context of legislation limiting freedom of speech or privacy, plaintiff asserts that our court should invalidate section 13353 on the ground that the Legislature could have achieved the purposes of the legislation through the adoption of an alternative sanction "less restrictive" of an individual's right to drive than the six-month license suspension provided by the current provision.
As we shall explain, we find plaintiff's constitutional contention totally lacking in merit. Although automobile travel is without question an important aspect of life in contemporary California society and an individual's substantial interest in retaining his driver's license has properly been accorded a variety of legal protections, plaintiff has cited absolutely no authority, from California or elsewhere, which suggests that legislative regulation of either automobile driving or automobile drivers is in any manner constitutionally "suspect" or involves any of the considerations which in past cases have been viewed as justifying the extraordinary invocation of "strict judicial scrutiny" of the Legislature's substantive policy decisions. On the contrary, as we shall see, past authorities -- while fully cognizant of the
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