NM court limits DWI license revocation

For a year and a half, the state Motor Vehicle Division could take away your driver’s license administratively even if the police officer didn’t have reasonable suspicion to pull you over.
That changed this summer with a decision by the state Supreme Court.
In its unanimous opinion in Schuster vs. State of New Mexico, written by Justice Edward L. Chavez, the high court ruled that “MVD must find the arrest and underlying police activity leading to the arrest are constitutional as a prerequisite to revoking a driver’s license.”
Upon arrest for DWI in New Mexico, two processes start: one is criminal, overseen by a judge and requires the state to find someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for a conviction; the other is administrative, overseen by a state hearing officer and requires a 51 percent finding of guilt to strip someone’s driving privilege.
And in the case of Eric Schuster, who was arrested on suspicion of DWI outside a Farmington bar in May 2009, the officer did have reasonable suspicion to investigate Schuster for drunken driving and probable cause to arrest him, according to the court’s opinion.
So the court upheld MVD’s mandatory one-year revocation of Schuster’s driver’s license.
Ousama Rasheed, president of the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, specializes in DWI law and argued the Schuster case before the Supreme Court.
The saga began in January 2011, Rasheed said, when the state Court of Appeals ruled in Glynn vs. State of New Mexico that the constitutionality of an arrest need not be considered in MVD’s administrative license revocation hearings.
Information from ABQ Journal

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