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Minchenko v. Vermont Commissioner of Motor Vehicles12/18/1995
d 336, 339 (1967). As we stated in State v. Strong, 158 Vt. 56, 63, 605 A.2d 510, 514 (1992):
he license suspension proceeding is not a criminal prosecution . . . . The Legislature intended a civil proceeding; the civil procedure rules apply; the evidentiary standard of proof is civil; and, finally, no criminal sanction may be imposed through the proceeding -- only license suspension can take place.
Accord State v. O'Brien, 158 Vt. 275, 277, 609 A.2d 981, 982 (1992).
When a record of a DUI conviction crosses the commissioner's desk, her role is simply to count the total number of valid convictions, and then to act in accordance with the statutory mandate. A district court's designation of a DUI conviction as a first offense does not vitiate the character of the conviction as a conviction. Nor may its conviction orders be read to delete prior convictions from the records of an independent branch of government -- the very kind of constitutional violation that defendant urges this Court to disallow.
We decided essentially the question now before us, albeit absent a constitutional claim, in Carpenter v. Department of Motor Vehicles, 143 Vt. 329, 333-34, 465 A.2d 1379, 1382 (1983). In that case the district court found that there was no evidence other than that the conviction of the defendant was his first refusal offense. The defendant then argued on appeal that the commissioner should be bound by the finding of the convicting court. We held, to the contrary, that once a conviction is entered by the district court, "` either the court nor the commissioner of motor vehicles has been granted discretionary power in this statutory consequence.'" Id. at 334, 465 A.2d at 1382 (quoting Bolio, 126 Vt. at 427-28, 234 A.2d at 339).
The present case, in constitutional garb, raises no questions not settled in Bolio and Carpenter. It is not a violation of Chapter II, § 5 for the commissioner to follow her mandate to the letter, under a statutory scheme that makes her role, and that of the courts, clear and distinct.
Affirmed.
Frederic W. Allen, Chief Justice
Ernest W. Gibson III, Associate Justice
John A. Dooley, Associate Justice
James L. Morse, Associate Justice
Denise R. Johnson, Associate Justice
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