DeMichele v. State Taxation & Revenue Dep't

2015 NMCA 095, 8 N.M. Ct. App. 507
CourtNew Mexico Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 3, 2015
Docket33,778
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2015 NMCA 095 (DeMichele v. State Taxation & Revenue Dep't) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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DeMichele v. State Taxation & Revenue Dep't, 2015 NMCA 095, 8 N.M. Ct. App. 507 (N.M. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

1 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

2 Opinion Number:

3 Filing Date: June 3, 2015

4 NO. 33,778

5 MONTE DEMICHELE,

6 Petitioner-Appellant,

7 v.

8 STATE OF NEW MEXICO 9 TAXATION AND REVENUE DEPARTMENT 10 MOTOR VEHICLE DIVISION,

11 Respondent-Appellee.

12 APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF BERNALILLO COUNTY 13 Ted Baca, District Judge

14 Joan M. Waters 15 Albuquerque, NM

16 for Appellant

17 Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General 18 Lewis J. Terr, Special Assistant Attorney General 19 Santa Fe, NM

20 for Appellee 1 OPINION

2 FRY, Judge.

3 {1} Petitioner Monte DeMichele appeals from the district court’s order denying his

4 petition for restoration of his driver’s license. This Court, having reviewed the

5 information presented at two evidentiary hearings held by the district court on this

6 issue, concludes that the district court abused its discretion in determining that

7 Petitioner failed to meet the “good cause” standard required for restoration pursuant

8 to NMSA 1978, Section 66-5-5(D) (2011). Accordingly, we reverse the district court

9 and remand for restoration of Petitioner’s license.

10 BACKGROUND

11 {2} Between 1990 and 2007, Petitioner was convicted six times of driving while

12 intoxicated (DWI). The last of these arrests occurred on August 17, 2005. On

13 December 9, 2005, an interlock device was placed in Petitioner’s vehicle. On August

14 8, 2013, Petitioner requested restoration of his driver’s license in accordance with

15 Section 66-5-5(D). Two evidentiary hearings were held in this matter, on September

16 25, 2013, and March 19, 2014, the details of which are discussed below. At the

17 conclusion of the first hearing, the district court postponed making a decision until

18 Petitioner could provide six more months of interlock records. At the conclusion of 1 the second hearing, the district court denied the petition for restoration,

2 notwithstanding the Motor Vehicle Division’s support in favor of restoration.

3 {3} At the first hearing on the petition for restoration, Petitioner testified as to his

4 sobriety, his participation in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) for the last eight years, and

5 the fact that he has had no violations on his interlock device. Petitioner also testified

6 that he worked with a personal counselor, completed all programs following his

7 arrest, and changed his associations and his way of life to avoid his “triggers.” In

8 support of his request for restoration, Petitioner submitted letters of support from a

9 number of people, including his employer, and interlock records from December 9,

10 2010, until February 22, 2013.

11 {4} The State in its answer, and the district court at the hearing, expressed some

12 concern over the number of refusals to retest indicated in Petitioner’s interlock

13 records. Petitioner submitted a letter from the interlock monitoring company

14 explaining that the most common explanations for a refusal to retest are: (1) “that the

15 driver was warming up the car in the morning, went back into their house and didn’t

16 get to retest in time”; or (2) “that they leave their vehicle running while running in

17 somewhere to conduct an errand or other business and not having the knowledge that

18 the interlock was requesting a test.” Petitioner testified that “sometimes [he would]

19 leave the ignition on, depending on the customer that [he was] speaking with, because

2 1 some of them walk [him] out to [his] vehicle[.]” The letter from the interlock

2 company explained that it does “not consider a retest refusal to be suspicious, unless

3 it is for a prolonged period of time usually exceeding [eight to ten] minutes OR that

4 all retests from the initial test to ignition off have been ignored.” The State conceded

5 that it did not know precisely how the refusals worked and indicated that it was

6 satisfied with Petitioner’s explanation.

7 {5} At the conclusion of the hearing, the district court asked Petitioner if he

8 thought “that having the interlock is a useful tool for [him] to really avoid drinking

9 and driving[.]” Petitioner acknowledged that the interlock device had been a useful

10 tool, “especially for the first few years” when he was “trying to build tools and things

11 like that to keep [him] away from [his] bad decisions that [he] had made in [his]

12 past[.]” However, he testified that he now had “different avenues and [he] trust[s]

13 [him]self.”

14 The district court then went on to conclude the hearing by stating:

15 Well, you know, you’ve done a lot of good, there’s no question you’ve 16 made—you’ve worked hard[; ]you have a lot of recommendations here 17 from people who will attest to your new character and your hard work 18 and your family life. What I’m balancing is, you’ve had about eight 19 good years, I suppose, but you had about 30 pretty bad years—

20 ....

3 1 —you know. And I think I’d prefer to see a little more time go by to 2 make sure the good years stay good years because I think the interlock 3 does you some good, as you have attested to.

4 So what I want to do is, I’m going to continue this and reschedule it 5 again for sometime in January. Come back and we’ll look at it and see 6 where things are. If everything is the same, then I think you’re going to 7 have a good chance to get your license restored.

8 {6} The hearing reconvened about six months after the first hearing. At this

9 hearing, Petitioner submitted interlock records for the period from September 9, 2013,

10 through February 7, 2014. The district court asked the State for any relevant

11 information from the newly submitted interlock records, and the State indicated that

12 there were “three indications of pass greater than zero.” However, the State explained

13 that these occur when “the machine detects alcohol from some source, and it can be

14 ambient in the air.” The State went on to explain:

15 So it could be anything from—I don’t know what the word would be— 16 scant background alcohol sensation or sensing alcohol from some source 17 up to .024, because anything greater than .025, regulations require that 18 they list that as a violation.

19 ....

20 In other words, I don’t know that this particular company can do a 21 printout, but I’ve seen details of those things where sometimes the levels 22 are at an extremely insignificant level, like .000 something.

23 When asked by the district court to explain the low level readings, Petitioner stated

24 that, based on his conversation with a person at the interlock monitoring company,

4 1 it could be the result of his being an insulin-dependent diabetic and that the low level

2 readings were .00024 and .00026. The State also pointed out to the district court that

3 the substance abuse evaluation that had been prepared at the Court’s request

4 confirmed that Petitioner is an insulin-dependent diabetic. In addition, the State

5 pointed out that the substance abuse evaluation1 indicated that Petitioner was truthful

6 and not dependent on alcohol. The district court again questioned Petitioner about the

7 number of refusals in his interlock records.

8 {7} In addition, the district court again made remarks about the interlock device

9 being a significant tool:

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2015 NMCA 095, 8 N.M. Ct. App. 507, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/demichele-v-state-taxation-revenue-dept-nmctapp-2015.