A common scenario that unfolds when you are stopped and subsequently arrested for drunk driving is that you are subjected to a breathalyzer test that results in a blood-alcohol reading of .12%, for example. After this, your driver’s license will probably be confiscated and you will be given a piece of paper to this effect. The question that this scenario would of course bring up is whether or not that is actually legal. What of being presumed innocent before proven guilty and other concerns with regard to due process? And why were you not even given a chance to defend yourself in court before your license was revoked? The answer to those questions lies with the laws governing the Department of Motor Vehicles.

This body is given the legal right to confiscate your driver’s license even if you have not been convicted of DUI, based on several factors. In most cases, it is enough for you to have a breath alcohol reading of .08% breath reading, have been given a blood or urine test-even if the results have yet to be analyzed later, or you simply refuse to take any test whatsoever! All of these are enough legal grounds for the police officer to revoke your license on the spot, from the moment you are handed the notice to that effect. What this means is that you have been suspected, detained, convicted, and penalized instantly by the police officer in question! As for your legal rights as a citizen, you are sheer out of luck. Even the blood or urine test-the results of which will not be available until several days later-is seen as evidence of a crime, whether or not one has been committed.

This is indeed a disturbing turn of events, and the sad fact of the matter is that it and many other cases such as these are common occurrences on the roads and highways of the United States today. Thanks to the efforts of over zealous groups such as MADD and various lawmakers, the quest to get drunk drivers off the streets immediately has taken precedence over such trivialities as civil liberties and individual freedom. A particularly disturbing aspect of these developments is the passing of several laws known as “administrative per se” or APS, which refers to the current legal blood alcohol level of .08%.

How do they get away with this? Simply put, the granting of a driver’s license is seen by anti drunk driving crusaders as a privilege, not a right. Of course since the driver has no rights to begin with, the state has the power to do as it pleases. Fortunately, reason prevailed in the form of the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to acknowledge that while the granting of a driver’s license can indeed be seen as a privilege, a person that has been granted one has certain rights associated with its use, which means that it cannot simply be confiscated until the subject has undergone due process. This decision has manifested itself in the granting of short-term temporary permit that allow a driver to continue to use his or her vehicle, while pursuing an administrative hearing that will determine the eventual outcome of the case.

MADD has understandably not been to keen on these developments and have managed to get federal involvement in these decisions. A bill was passed recently that effectively forced many states into following APS suspension guidelines or face the loss of funding. What is all the more disturbing is that these APS hearings are as far from due process as they can possibly be. In California for instance, these hearings are conducted by a hearing officer who is actually employed by the DMV, which is of course the very same organization that is attempting to suspend the driver’s license in the first place. To add even more insult to injury, these officers are not judges or even lawyers in any sense of the word. In fact, only a high school diploma is required for a person to be accepted into this crucial position! When you consider the fact that this underqualified employee of the DMV is tasked with determining a person’s legal right to get his or her license back, you can see that due process can potentially not even enter the picture.