Examining the Effectiveness of Utah’s Law
Allowing for Telephonic Testimony at ALR Hearings

Administrative license revocations (ALR) and administrative license suspensions (ALS) for driving while impaired (DWI), are actions that are controlled by state driver licensing agencies, and are separate from any court actions. The purpose of ALR/ALS is to allow the suspension or revocation of driving privileges of those drivers at or above the illegal limit for blood or breath alcohol concentration through administrative actions. This is typically a more expeditious route that allows state agencies to remove unsafe drivers from the roadways and to administer licensing actions faster, and with more cer-tainty, than judicial proceedings.

In most instances, the driver license suspension/revocation is imposed administra-tively based on the arresting officer’s report of the breath test result or refusal. However, individuals arrested for DWI may request a hearing to protest the administrative with-drawal of their driving privileges and to try and have their driver licenses reinstated. Pro-cedures associated with conducting these administrative hearings have often presented difficulties in the smooth implementation of ALR/ALS laws, thereby inhibiting the use of such laws.

This project has studied a unique solution, allowing telephonic testimony at ad-ministrative license hearings in Utah, as a remedy to the problem of law enforcement of-ficers failing to appear at ALR hearings (a common problem across the United States). This problem and solution, as well as others surrounding ALR implementation within the state of Utah, are documented in this report.

METHOD

Project staff visited Utah and met with state level officials from the Driver Ser-vices Bureau, a part of the Utah Department of Public Safety, Driver License Division, to learn about the laws and procedures related to ALR and the associated hearings. In order to learn as much as possible about the ALR process in Utah, project staff talked with all hearing officers and supervisors who handle ALR hearings in Utah, police officers from a variety of law enforcement agencies operating within the State, defense attorneys repre-senting individuals arrested for DUI offenses, persons responsible for maintaining and providing pertinent driver record data, as well as the Utah Governor’s Highway Safety Representative, NHTSA regional staff, and the state level officials mentioned above.

Methods employed to obtain pertinent information included interviews, focus groups, data analysis from State level driver license record databases, and a survey con-ducted in conjunction with the Utah Department of Public Safety. The evaluation fo-cused on any impact on the number of ALR hearings held, the number of telephonic hear-ings, the number of hearings where one or more participants failed to appear, and the out-come of all ALR hearings. We received data relating to ALR hearings beginning in 1995 throughout the project time period (2001).

BACKGROUND

The Utah Driver License Division, by statute, has 30 days from the date of a DUI-related arrest to comply with a driver’s written request for an administrative hearing re-garding the driver license action. Due to detailed record keeping, State officials were able to determine that a significant number of law enforcement officers were not appear-ing at ALR hearings. As a result, no action had been taken against those drivers who had been arrested for DUI-related offenses, and they were permitted to keep their driver li-censes pending court actions.

Arresting officers might not appear at an ALR hearing for a variety of reasons. Conflicts could arise with training schedules, work-related duties such as a crash investi-gation could take priority, and personal reasons could interfere when a hearing is sched-uled during the officer’s vacation or off-duty hours when officers have other commit-ments. Also, there were indications that in some law enforcement agencies (LEAs), command officers do not encourage the arresting officers to attend hearings because it takes the officers out of service, and their Departments must pay most of the costs for the officers’ time.

During the year 2000 General Session, Utah state legislators enacted Section 53-3-223.5 of the Utah Code to allow telephonic or live audio-visual testimony by law en-forcement officers, defendants and attorneys at administrative license hearings. The law states, “In any division hearing authorized under this chapter or Title 41, Chapter 6, Arti-cle 5, Driving While Intoxicated and Reckless Driving, the division may permit a party or witness to attend or to testify by telephone or live audio-visual means.” While a few un-official telephonic hearings were held during the summer months of 2000, the actual im-plementation began in September of that year, with telephonic capabilities increasing throughout the following months.

FINDINGS

Over the seven years (1995-2001) of cumulative data examined during this pro-ject, almost half (45%) of the ALR hearings resulted in “no action” (the license was not withdrawn), with 68% of these “no action” findings ruled as a result of the absence of the arresting officer. Although the number of licenses returned due to the absence of the ar-resting officers at the ALR hearing increased after the use of telephonic hearings began, the number of “no action” hearings increased at an even higher rate. The total number of hearings requested also increased dramatically. So, proportionately, the hearings result-ing in “no action” due to peace officers failing to appear actually fell by about 20%. A time series analysis revealed this reduction to be statistically significant (p=0.01). Al-though this reduction cannot be attributed entirely to the use of the telephonic format, as the reduction began before the implementation of telephonic ALR hearings, we consider the use of telephonic ALR hearings to be a factor in the continued reduced rate of “no action” findings due to the absence of law enforcement.

As numbers of DUI-related arrests have been steadily increasing in Utah, the numbers of ALR hearings have been increasing and, therefore, one could assume that the numbers of ALR telephonic hearings will increase naturally. But, in fact, the number of requests for an ALR hearing more than tripled between 1998 and 2001; and while the percentages of telephonic ALR hearings are also increasing, up to a monthly high of 20% of all ALR hearings, the rate of telephonic hearings have not yet kept pace with the in-crease in the standard ALR hearings. It is important to increase the use of the telephonic testimony capabilities by law enforcement, as long as there are ALR hearings where the arresting officers fail to appear.

Telephonic hearing capabilities in Utah have not yet been fully implemented throughout the State. Relatively few of the hearing officers are routinely utilizing the telephonic capability. Many of the law enforcement officers (32%) contacted during this project were not aware of the ALR telephonic law. Almost half (48%) of the LEA offi-cers contacted were not aware of telephonic capabilities in their area for ALR hearings. (In fact, it may be true that many of the officers who responded to the survey are working in areas where telephonic hearings are not yet available due to lack of facilities.)

Discovery of the telephonic capability and growing familiarity with the telephonic ALR process will likely increase its use after a period of time. But training must play an important role as almost half (46%) of the peace officers that responded to the survey reported they did not feel adequately trained in the standard ALR hearing procedures, much less telephonic hearings. It is possible that the absences of arresting officers from ALR hearings, both standard and telephonic, could be due to unease or unfamiliarity with the ALR hearing process as well as conflicts with work schedules and regularly sched-uled time off, coupled with a lack of directive by command officers. The command staff, as well as the arresting officers, must understand that a strong position with strong testi-mony during an ALR hearing will enhance law enforcement’s position in the judicial process. Time spent in an ALR hearing could reduce or eliminate the amount of time re-quired of peace officers during the court proceedings, if the defendant pleads guilty after the ALR hearing.

Defense attorneys are also learning about the benefits of telephonic hearings. This hearing format is more cost effective and less time consuming than having to appear at an ALR hearing, especially if the attorney must travel a significant distance. There is the possibility that defense attorneys and appellants become so comfortable with the tele-phonic format that requests for these types of ALR hearings could increase exponentially, as there would be little reason for persons arrested for DUI not to request ALR hearings. Those arrested for DUI offenses have the option of participating telephonically in the ALR hearing without having to take time to physically appear, and if the arresting officer is absent, their driving privileges are reinstated. The defense attorneys could more easily attempt to gather information pertinent to the judicial proceeding for minimal cost to their clients, because their time spent on the ALR hearing is significantly reduced due to their ability to participate telephonically. Thus, it would become even more important that the arresting officers participate in all ALR hearings. Otherwise the exact problem that tele-phonic ALR hearings were meant to reduce or solve, that of the return of driving licenses to appellants due to the absence of law enforcement at the ALR hearings, will actually be compounded.

Read the Full Report (PDF)

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