Shoul v. Bureau of Driver Licensing

In this appeal, we review the trial court’s determination that 75 Pa.C.S. 1611(e) violated Pennsylvania’s constitutional right to due process and the federal and Pennsylvania constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment. In 2013, a Pennsylvania State Police informant asked Appellee Lawrence Shoul, who held a CDL, to retrieve marijuana from one of Appellee’s co-workers and deliver it to the informant. Appellee obliged, using a motor vehicle to do so, whereupon he was arrested and charged with two counts of felony manufacture, delivery, or possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, and ultimately convicted of the same. Thereafter, PennDOT notified Appellee that, pursuant to Section 1611(e), he was disqualified from holding a CDL for life. Appellee appealed his disqualification to the trial court, which found that Section 1611(e) violated Pennsylvania’s constitutional right to substantive due process and the federal and Pennsylvania constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment. Preliminarily, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed with the trial court that Section 1611(e) was not rationally related, at least as a matter of Pennsylvania constitutional jurisprudence, to the protection of highway safety. Furthermore, the Court found merit in the trial court’s view that Section 1611(e)’s severity, relative to Section 1611’s other sanctions for conduct plainly more dangerous to highway safety, undermined the notion that it was rationally related to that purpose. Furthermore, the Court agreed that Section 1611(e)’s imposition of a lifetime disqualification undermined its rational relationship to promoting highway safety. However, the Court agreed with PennDOT that the trial court overlooked the fact that Section 1611(e) served the legitimate governmental purpose of deterring drug activity. The Supreme Court: reversed the trial court’s order insofar as it held that Section 1611(e) violated the Pennsylvania constitutional right to substantive due process; vacated the trial court’s order insofar as it held that Section 1611(e) violated the federal and state constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment; and remanded this case back to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Shoul v. Bureau of Driver Licensing" on Justia Law