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Adjudicator Who Introduced, Admitted Documents Wasn’t ‘Advocate’—C.A.
Justices Say DMV Reliance on Commonly Admitted Documents Didn’t Breach Due Process
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A Department of Motor Vehicles hearing officer did not assume the proscribed role of an “advocate” by introducing and admitting into evidence a sworn and an unsworn arrest report at a hearing to determine if a motorist would suffer a one-year driver’s license suspension for refusing to submit to a chemical test to determine if he was intoxicated while operating his vehicle, Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal determined yesterday.
Justice William Dato authored the opinion, filed Wednesday. It reverses a writ of administrative mandate that was granted by San Diego Superior Court Judge Carolyn Caietti in favor of the motorist, Anthony Frank Romane Jr.
Dato acknowledged the 2022 decision by Div. Four of this district’s Court of Appeal in California DUI Lawyers Association v. Department of Motor Vehicles. In that opinion, then-Justice Brian S. Currey (later the presiding justice, now retired) said:
“…Although procedural fairness does not prohibit the combination of the advocacy and adjudicatory functions within a single administrative agency, tasking the same individual with both roles violates the minimum constitutional standards of due process.”
Lawyer’s Objection
At the Department of Motor Vehicles (“DMV”) administrative hearing, Romane’s lawyer did not object to admission of his client’s driving record or the arresting officer’s body camera footage, but did protest the sua sponte consideration of the reports, asserting that the hearing officer, Trena Leota, was acting as an advocate for the department. Leota said she was “simply giving the documents that I have that have been signed under penalty of perjury, and that is how I will go forward with the hearing.”
She subsequently found in favor of the DMV.
Dato wrote:
“[W]e conclude that Leota did not cross the line into advocacy.”
Routine Admission
He said that she did introduce and admit into evidence the reports, but noted that, “as the DMV points out, these documents are appropriately and routinely admitted into evidence” at such hearings.
The jurist noted that “[t]he law has also long been clear” that “sworn…and unsworn police reports are admissible” at the license-suspension hearings “pursuant to the public records hearsay exception” contained in Evidence Code §1280.
Sato declared:
“[W]e conclude that where, as here, a hearing officer merely introduces the documents that law enforcement duly forwarded to the DMV, which are routinely admitted into evidence at APS hearings, the officer is merely collecting and developing evidence, not advocating for the DMV.”
The case is Romane v. Department of Motor Vehicles, D083569.
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