In a surprising case out of Kansas, the state’s Supreme Court held this week that a man’s driver’s license should be reinstated despite an arrest for drunk driving. Though this may seem very unusual given the definitive evidence against the driver, the Kansas Supreme Court said its decision in Jacob Carl Rodewald v. Kansas Department of Revenue was based on the location of the arrest: the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Indian Reservation.
According to a recent report at CJOnline.com, the state’s highest court decided that Kansas’ license suspension law does not apply to those arrests made by tribal law enforcement officers while on tribal land. The Court said that Jacob Carl Rodewald’s license should be reinstated after a 2008 stop on the Potawatomi reservation. The reason given was that the Kansas Department of Revenue had no jurisdictional basis to suspend Rodewald’s license since the arresting officer was not from the state of Kansas and the arrest itself did not take place in the state of Kansas.
Rodewald, who at the time was 18 years old, was first pulled over by a tribal officer on April 26, 2008. The officer noticed the smell of alcohol on Rodewald’s breath and, after a few minutes of questioning, Rodewald admitted to having had a beer with a friend. He was then taken into custody and his BAC was eventually found to be 0.046. While that’s still below the legal limit of 0.08, remember that Rodewald was 18. Kansas law states that any driver under 21 who is found to be driving with a BAC greater than 0.02 will have his or her license suspended.
Rodewald, who is a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, initially filed the appeal of his license suspension because he felt that the Kansas Department of Revenue lacked the power to penalize him for an arrest made on Indian land. His attorney argued before the Kansas Supreme Court claiming that tribal courts should have the sole jurisdiction in such cases.
However surprising this decision might be, the justices were in full agreement, deciding unanimously that the state’s Department of Revenue only had authority over those who operate vehicles within Kansas. Justice Lee Johnson, who wrote the opinion, stated that the statute’s language clearly specifies that license suspension will only occur to those arrested “in this state.” Justice Johnson said that the phrase clearly refers to those areas that are within the jurisdiction of Kansas police officers.
The Court clearly came down on the side of acknowledging that tribal land is a sovereign space over which the Kansas Department of Revenue (or, for that matter, any Kansas governmental body) has no power. Though Justice Johnson mentioned that the state has a substantial interest in keeping impaired drivers off the road, the right of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation to govern themselves takes precedence.
This is a post was provided by experienced Minneapolis DWI Lawyer Douglas Kans from Kans Law Firm, LLC. You can find out more about Douglas by visiting www.kanslaw.com.
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