Troppman

When a law enforcement officer finds an apparently intoxicated person in a vehicle parked on the side of a road under circumstances that provide the officer reasonable cause to believe that the person had been driving while under the influence of alcohol or a drug, and the person fails to submit to chemical sobriety testing as requested by the officer, may the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) suspend the person’s driver’s license based upon the circumstance that the officer had reasonable cause to believe the person had been driving while under the influence, or is suspension of a driver’s license permissible in this setting only if the DMV finds that the person actually had been driving the vehicle immediately prior to the officer’s request?

This question requires us to consider two statutes in the Vehicle Code—section 23612, the “implied consent” law (deeming motorists who have been lawfully arrested for driving while under the influence to have consented to chemical testing) and section 13353, setting forth the consequences (including suspension or revocation of a driver’s license) of a motorist’s refusal to submit to chemical testing.

The issue presented by this…