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Satterfield v. State11/20/2001
r arrest . . . refuses, upon the request of a law enforcement officer, to submit to a chemical test designated by the law enforcement officer . . . , no test shall be given; but the law enforcement officer shall report the refusal to the department. Upon the receipt of a sworn report of the law enforcement officer that the officer had reasonable grounds to believe the arrested person had been driving or was in actual physical control of a moving motor vehicle upon the highways or elsewhere throughout this state in violation of Code Section 40-6-391 . . . and that the person had refused to submit to the test upon the request of the law enforcement officer, the department shall suspend the person's driver's license . . . for a period of one year . . . , subject to review as provided for in this chapter. (Emphasis supplied.)
Subsequent to this suspension, the driver may, if he wishes to do so, request a limited hearing to determine the propriety of the suspension. See OCGA § 40-5-67.1 (g).
Therefore, as Officer Wells stated to Satterfield, the implied consent statute does provide for the automatic suspension of a resident driver's license upon refusing the request to take the State's chemical test. Following any such refusal, the arresting officer has an obligation to file a report and submit a sworn statement. In turn, upon the filing of this mandatory information, the statute provides that the driver's license shall be suspended for a period of one year. The fact that the suspension may subsequently be challenged, at the option of the driver, does not obviate the suspension which has already been set in place before any such hearing occurs. Accordingly, Officer Wells' statement to Satterfield that his license would be automatically suspended, rather than merely saying that it would be suspended, left the substance of the implied consent notice unchanged.
2. Satterfield also argues that Officer Wells altered the substance of the implied consent statute by telling him that evidence of his refusal "would be" offered into evidence against him at trial rather than such admission was permissive, as provided for in the statute. Again, this argument misconstrues the implied consent statute.
OCGA § 40-5-67.1 (b) (3) states that the refusal to submit to a test "shall be admitted into evidence." The bottom line, then, is that evidence of refusal will be admissible if the prosecutor wishes to proffer such information. Thus, whether Satterfield was informed that the refusal would be admitted or could be admitted, he faced the same concern in either scenario - that a trial court ultimately would consider the evidence of his refusal. Therefore, contrary to Satterfield's argument, the "would be" scenario is not more coercive than the "could be" scenario because both could result in the admission of the refusal into evidence. As such, the substance of the implied consent notice remained essentially the same, and Satterfield's decision to submit to the testing process was not improperly coerced.
Moreover, we point out that, although Satterfield testified below that Officer Wells' statement that his license would be automatically suspended had a bearing on his decision to take the State's breath test, he made no similar mention of the statement regarding admission of the refusal against him at trial.
Judgment affirmed.
Pope, P. J., and Mikell, J., concur.
Page 1 2 Georgia DUI Attorneys
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