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State v. Lussier4/28/2000
Iowa 1990). There, however, the court's decision was based upon a specific statute permitting a defendant to reopen a civil suspension when a court in a criminal action rules that the arresting officer lacked reasonable grounds. The court noted that the statute had effectively superseded an earlier decision holding that the exclusionary rule did not apply in civil suspension proceedings. See id. at 451. Thus, these cases are of little assistance in our quest to understand the legislative intent of our civil suspension statute.
With the majority's ruling, the summary civil procedure envisioned by the Legislature will now be transformed into a full blown trial on issues not appearing in the civil suspension statute. It may be that there will cease to be value in pursuing a civil suspension. In Stearns this Court rejected the defendant's claim that the State was collaterally estopped from relitigating in the criminal case the court's earlier ruling in the civil suspension hearing on the issue of defendant's alleged refusal to take the test. See 159 Vt. at 272, 617 A.2d at 143. We suggested that, in civil suspension hearings, it was the State's decision whether to risk that a defendant's license would not be suspended because an officer's affidavit could not adequately convince the court in the face of defendant's live testimony on an issue. Id. at 271-72, 617 A.2d at 143. To hold otherwise, the Court observed, would force the State "to try the criminal case, with live witnesses, in the civil suspension proceeding," which would "nullify the summary suspension proceeding that the Legislature enacted." Id. How does that analysis of our civil suspension statute comport with today's ruling?
For all of the foregoing reasons, therefore, I am unpersuaded that the civil suspension statute permitted defendants to challenge the validity of the underlying motor vehicle stops. I am equally unpersuaded, for the reasons discussed in the dissenting opinion of the Chief Justice, of any overriding constitutional imperative to read such a requirement into the statute. Accordingly, I join in his dissent. I would affirm the judgments. I am authorized to state that the Chief Justice joins in this dissent.
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