DMV Hearings - Claims that they are rigged in California
In a post today, Lawrence Taylor of duiblog.com made the assertion that DMV hearings in California May be rigged. The basics are that the head hearing officer issued a scathing memo berating judges for bad decisions allowing people to keep their licenses.
The judges or hearing officers who listen to these cases are supposed to be neutral. It is a basic premise of due process. Typically, administrative law judges decisions are reviewable by an appeals court, not the supervisor in the office.
The memo quoted in Mr. Taylor's post makes it sound like the lower ALJ's jobs may be in danger if the boss doesn't agree with their rulings. However, there is no hint that the boss would be reviewing cases where the ALJ suspended the driver's license, only those where no suspension was issued.
The conclusion to be drawn, if the memo is authentic, is that any ALJ in that office that wants to keep his or her job secure would be best served by issuing suspensions, since non-suspensions would be reviewed.
If this is true it is a shameful slap in the face of lawyers and judges who work hard to maintain our justice system, along with due process. No matter which side you are aligned with in the great drunk driving divide, nobody with any legal training who cares about our system could, with clear conscience, condone this memo.
http://www.duilawblog.com/admin/trackback/93498
As an additional note, while I have disagreed with many Arizona ALJ decisions in my career, I have never seen any evidence that their is a delegated bias in the Arizona MVD license hearing system.