One Way You May be Able to Keep Your License After All
In my last post, I wrote that once you refused to take a chemical test to determine your blood alcohol level, PennDOT would suspend your driver's license for one year. I did note that you would be entitled to a hearing in front of a judge before PennDOT could take your license, but that the judge would have only very narrow grounds to prevent PennDOT from doing so.
One of those narrows grounds, however, was recently re-affirmed by the Commonwealth Court. (This is the appeals court that hears only civil cases involving governmental entities. PennDOT license suspensions end up here since PennDOT is a government agency.) The case is called Taylor v. Bureau of Driver Licensing, and it overturned PennDOT's decision to suspend Mr. Taylor's license after Mr. Taylor refused to take a chemical test.
The Commonwealth Court allowed Mr. Taylor to keep his license based on a little-known Pennsylvania law called the Municipal Police Jurisdiction Act. Under this Act, police from one township or borough have limited authority in other townships or boroughs. (They can still arrest someone in another township if they are in hot pursuit, however, so you can't escape the police by outrunning them to the township line.)
Here, Mr. Taylor was arrested in Upper Darby Township by a police officer from Nether Providence Township. The Nether Providence officer had been invited to staff the Upper Darby DUI checkpoint by a police officer from Brookhaven Borough. There was no evidence of any connection between the Upper Darby police and this particular Nether Providence officer. Because the prosecution failed to establish that the Nether Providence officer had the proper authority to make the arrest of Mr. Taylor in Upper Darby, Mr. Taylor got to keep his driver's license.
The factual circumstances of the Taylor case are not common, but this situation does happen. More importantly, though, this case is just another example of how the best defenses are often found in the smallest details, and thus attention to detail is key to establishing the best possible criminal defense.
