Florida Supreme Court Rules DHSMV Hearing Officers are Required to Rule on Legality of DUI Arrests

According to Florida Law, anybody who is lawfully arrested for DUI must submit to a chemical test at the request of the arresting officer. If an individual refuses to submit to the test, that person's license to drive will be suspended for one year for a first refusal. The requirement to take a breath test is predicated upon the arrest being a lawful arrest. To challenge the license suspension the individual is required to petition the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles for an administrative hearing.

The Florida legislature attempted to prevent the administrative hearing officers from taking into consideration if the arrest was legal. The statute, as it had been written, stated the DHSMV was only permitted to determine whether the driver was arrested & whether the driver refused a chemical test. The Florida Supreme Court confronted this topic in the matter of Florida Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles vs. Hernandez.

The Florida Supreme Court, addressing certified questions from the 1st and 5th Districts, ruled that a driver's license suspension can be based upon refusal to take a chemical test, but only as long as the refusal is incident to a lawful arrest. Resolving a conflict involving the 1st & Second Districts, the court additionally held that a driver whose license to drive was suspended must have the ability to challenge whether the refusal was incident to a legal arrest in proceedings before a hearing officer, who is reviewing the validity regarding the suspension.

The court rephrased the certified questions as follows: (1) Can the DHSMV suspend a driver's license based on section 322.2615, Florida Statutes, for refusal to submit to a breath test if the refusal isn't incident to a lawful arrest? Answer: No.

(2) Is the problem of whether or not the refusal was incident to a lawful arrest within the permissible scope of review of a DHSMV hearing officer in a hearing to see if adequate cause exists in order to sustain the suspension of a driver's license under section 322.2615, Florida Statutes, for refusal to take a breath test? Answer: Yes.

The supreme court majority opinion presented the following analysis regarding the questions:

(1) Florida law doesn't require an individual to take a breath alcohol-detection test just because that individual possesses a driver's license. The obligation to take a breath-alcohol testing emanates in section 316.1932, Florida Statutes (2006), usually referred to as the implied consent laws. The law provides that the breath test must be incidental to a lawful arrest and provided at the request of a law enforcement officer who's reasonable cause to think such individual was driving or otherwise was in actual physical control of the car in this state while under the influence of alcoholic beverages. Therefore, the legislature authorized administration of the breath test only if it is incident to a lawful arrest and predicated on probable cause to think that the person driving was under the influence of alcoholic beverages.

Under the implied consent laws, the individual must be advised of the punishment (license suspension) for refusing to take a breath test. The statute in front of the court in this case governing suspension of an individual's driver's license & the right to review of such a driver's license suspension, authorizes a law enforcement officer, on behalf of DHSMV, to suspend the driver's license of any person who refuses to submit to a lawful breathalyzer test.

The only definition of a lawful breath test pursuant to section 322.2615 is within section 316.1932(1)(a). The statutes need to be read in pari materia. Section 316.1932 is the one statute that defines parameters of a legal breath-alcohol test in section 322.2615. If the statutes aren't read in pari materia, it follows that there is no notice concerning at what time citizens are required to take a test or otherwise be subject to a suspension of their driver's licenses. Hence, a legal test based on section 322.2615, Florida Statutes, is one that is requested incident to a legal arrest, as laid out in section 316.1932, Florida Statutes. (2) The 2nd rephrased certified question is related to the 1st question and concerns the method of challenging a driver's license suspension on account of refusal to take a breathalyzer test. The court explained that, after an individual's license is suspended based on section 322.2615 for refusing to submit to a breath test under section 316.1932, that section authorizes the driver to demand a formal or informal review of validity regarding the suspension. In the previous version of the statute, the hearing officer's scope of review included consideration of the additional subject of whether the person was put under lawful arrest for a violation of s. 316.193. Because the legislature removed this statutory language & made other deletions in the amended bill, the DHSMV argues that the issue of whether or not an individual was placed under a lawful arrest isn't a factor in the driver's license suspension process.

As noted by the circuit court in another matter, though the legislature's elimination of the legal arrest condition from section 322.2615(7) may seem clear, the legislature left that condition in the implied consent law. Section 322.2615 can't be read in isolation but should be read together together with section 316.1932, which defines the scope of a driver's obligation to submit to a breathalyzer test. Section 322.2615 doesn't establish any obligation on the part of a driver to take a test upon the request of law enforcement; it merely establishes consequences for refusal. Section 316.1932 is what creates & defines the scope of the obligation, & its mandate is certain: the test has to be incident to a lawful arrest. These statutes need to be considered in pari materia.

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Subsection 322.2615(7) purports to limit the scope of review to 3 matters. The 1st matter, probable cause, is a concept that is frequently inextricably intertwined when considering the legality of the detention as it is with this matter. The second issue directs the hearing officer to deal with whether a driver refused to take any such test. Any such test refers to the legal test the driver's license suspension must be pursuant to.

The final subject, the provision of notice, relates towards the form of notice required through the same law, which too refers to a legal test. This so-called limitation on the hearing officer's scope of review does not nullify the statute's directive that the hearing officer determine whether or not adequate cause exists in order to sustain, amend, or otherwise invalidate the driver's license suspension. A driver whose license to drive is unlawfully suspended is required to have a way to challenge that driver's license suspension, & the only means through which the driver is able to challenge suspension of his or her license to drive on account of failure to submit to a breathalyzer test is through section 322.2615. Even if denominated a right or a privilege, the loss of a driver's license is an extreme hardship.

The analysis urged by DHSMV would permit DHSMV to suspend a driver's license to drive without reasonable notice & no possibility of a meaningful method to evaluate the lawfulness of the suspension. The only interpretation of the statute that avoids an unreasonable & unconstitutional result is to read sections 322.2615 and 322.1932 in pari materia and permit the hearing officer to review whether the breath test was provided incident to a lawful arrest. As soon as section 322.2615 and section 316.1932 are interpreted together, it becomes apparent that under the statutory scheme, sufficient cause to sustain the suspension predicated on section 322.2615(7) and whether the person whose license was suspended refused to take any such test require that the hearing officer reach the determination of whether or not the breathalyzer test was administered incident to a lawful arrest, as is mandated by section 316.1932, Florida Statutes.

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