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Griffin v. Commonwealth4/11/2002
The Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing (Department) appeals from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County that sustained the appeal of Edward Griffin, Sr., from a one-year suspension of his driver's license imposed by the Department.
By notice dated June 29, 1998, the Department informed Griffin as follows:
Section 1581 of the Vehicle Code requires the Department to treat certain out of state convictions as though they had occurred in Pennsylvania. Therefore, as a result of the Department receiving notification from MARYLAND of your conviction on 05/15/1998 of an offense which occurred on 12/07/1997, which is equivalent to a violation of Section 3731 of the Pa. Vehicle Code, DRIVING UNDER INFLUENCE, your driving privilege is being SUSPENDED for a period of 1 YEARS(S), as mandated by Section 1532B of the Vehicle Code. (See Certified Record (C.R.); see also Reproduced Record (R.R.) at 37a) (footnote added).
We note that Griffin's arrest and conviction occurred before the effective date of the amendment (December 21, 1998) to Section 1584 of the Code, 75 Pa. C.S. §1584.
After the Common Pleas Court held a hearing de novo and sustained Griffin's appeal from his license suspension due to the defective Maryland conviction report, the Department appealed to this Court, raising three questions for our review. First, the Department argues that the amended Section 1584 of the Code should be applied retroactively to this case, and therefore the failure of the Maryland conviction report to include all of the information mandated by Article III of the Compact is excused. However, because the date of Griffin's conviction preceded the December 21, 1998, amendment to Section 1584, we reject the Department's assertion that that amendment is applicable herein. See Department of Transportation v. McCafferty, 536 Pa. 146, 758 A.2d 1155 (2000).
Second, the Department argues that, contrary to this Court's decision in Mazurek v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 717 A.2d 23 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1998), the General Assembly meant for the word "shall," as used in Article III of the Compact, to be directory, not mandatory, as evidenced, inter alia, by the post-Mazurek amendment of Section 1584. The Department also contends that, because the Compact is a contract between party states, the reporting state's duty under Article III is not a condition precedent to the Department's duty to suspend a Pennsylvania licensee's operating privilege for an out-of-state DUI conviction. With both of these assertions, we must now agree.
In the case at bar, Griffin had argued before the Common Pleas Court, and the Department did not deny, that the Maryland conviction report failed to "indicate whether a plea of guilty or not guilty was entered or the conviction was a result of the forfeiture of bail, bond or other security." See Article III of the Compact, 75 Pa. C.S. §1581; see also C.R., Notes of Testimony dated November 4, 1998, at 7; R.R. at 31a. As our Supreme Court recently explained in McCafferty, where the underlying facts concerned a New Jersey conviction report that neither identified the court in which the conviction was entered nor indicated the licensee's plea or whether the conviction resulted from the forfeiture of bail, bond or other security,
None of this information would have shed any light on the conduct underlying appellee's conviction; it is the conduct underlying the conviction that triggers PennDOT's duties under the Compact.
. . . Article III is clearly mandatory for a party state reporting a conviction within its jurisdiction. Article III therefore imposes an oblig
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