Monday, July 9, 2012

Colorado Court of Appeals Francen v. Department of Revenue 10CV798

Decision Here.

   A police officer saw the passenger of a car get out at a red light and try to contact the driver of another car.  Then the passenger got back into his own car, and the when the light turned green the cop stopped the car.  Francen (the driver) was drunk.  He was arrested, and at a DOR hearing his license was revoked.  Francen appealed the revocation of his license, arguing (as he did at the hearing) that the stop of his car was illegal because it wasn't supported by reasonable suspicion.  The district court agreed, and reversed the revocation.  The DOR appealed, and the Colorado Court of Appeals ordered the revocation to be reinstated.

   The Court ruled that the exclusionary rule doesn't apply to DOR hearings.  Their reasoning is that the exclusionary rule is a judicially created rule designed to protect the Fourth Amendment (as opposed to being a mandate of the Amendment itself), and that it is generally applicable to criminal cases.  In civil cases like this, it generally isn't applicable (there are some exceptions, but DOR hearings aren't one of them).  The Court didn't exactly reach the issue of whether or not the stop was illegal, although it also didn't challenge the district court's assertion that it was.  Since that issue wasn't decided, this case is of pretty limited use to law enforcement (it's nice from an academic standpoint to know that the exclusionary rule doesn't apply in DOR hearings, but we shouldn't make illegal stops anyway so a decision directly concerning the legality of the stop would have been much more interesting).  Even so, I figured it was worth a couple of paragraphs.

1 comment:

  1. The general assembly passed a law (effective May 11, 2013) which specifically authorizes a driver to challenge the validity of a stop in a DOR hearing. So although THE exclusionary rule may not apply to DOR hearings, congress has now created its own exclusionary rule expressly for DOR hearings.

    As such, this odd little decision is now even more irrelevant.

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