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Judges Urged To Warn Traffic Offenders About Pleas

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The Associated Press

Published: September 19, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - Judges are urged to warn habitual traffic offenders that guilty or no contest pleas could lead to the loss of their licenses - even though such warnings aren't yet required, a divided Florida Supreme Court said Thursday.

The 5-2 majority refused to let a Bay County motorist withdraw his no contest plea to a charge of driving with a suspended or revoked license, but it ordered a Florida Bar committee to draft a rule to compel warnings in the future.

In the meantime, the unsigned majority opinion urged judges and lawyers to warn defendants, even though license revocation isn't a criminal penalty if ordered by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles rather than a court.

"The bottom line is that the direct versus collateral consequence dichotomy is just not working," Justice Barbara Pariente wrote in a concurring opinion.

Chief Justice Peggy Quince and Justice Harry Lee Anstead dissented, arguing the loss of a driver's license is punishment regardless of how it's imposed.

"Try telling a truck driver who has just had his license permanently revoked that he has not been punished," Anstead wrote.

That's how Demello Bolware felt when Highway Safety revoked his license for five years after declaring him to be a habitual offender on the basis of his no contest plea.

Bolware, also fined $253 by the judge, went back to county court and said he wouldn't have entered the plea if he had been told his license also was in jeopardy.

The judge refused to let him withdraw the plea, saying neither the court nor Bolware's lawyer had a legal duty to warn him of a collateral consequence. The high court agreed.

The majority included former Justice Raoul Cantero, who resigned effective Sept. 5. Justice R. Fred Lewis concurred in the result only, not the majority's explanation.

In another traffic-related case, the justices upheld a motorist's conviction in Broward County on a felony drunken-driving charge although the case had been tried as a less-serious misdemeanor.

After the jury's guilty verdict, the offense was bumped up to a felony because the driver had three prior drunken-driving convictions. The 6-1 majority ruled that trying the case as a misdemeanor was a harmless error. Anstead dissented.

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