Driving With Suspended License

This sounds obvious, but remember that the prosecution has to prove each element beyond a reasonable doubt, including the element of “driving a vehicle.” In many cases, this element is easily proven because police officers have arrested a person on suspicion of violating VC 14601.2 during a “routine traffic stop”, and it seems largely uncontroverted that the defendant arrested was, in fact, driving a vehicle at the time. In other cases, however, the evidence does not so clearly establish the defendant’s identity as the driver.

Consider for example a case where police respond to a 911 call about a car accident, and find the car in question abandoned. Based some conversations with bystanders, the police eventually locate the defendant and a friend nearby, and determine that both persons were previously in the car at the time of accident. The car is registered to the defendant, whose license is suspended due to a prior DUI. The police might then assume that the defendant was driving and thus might have violated VC 14601.2. However, in this case the defense might be able to show that the defendant’s friend was, in fact, driving the car in question at the time, or at least that there is reasonable doubt as to who the driver actually was.

VC 14601.2 specifically carves out an exception for drivers who are in a drug rehab program and are only driving a car for certain work-related purposes. Where the defendant’s license is suspended from a prior DUI, and they drive a vehicle, but the vehicle is owned by an employer and the defendant is only driving it on the employer’s private property, and the defendant was operating the vehicle as part of their job. However, where the defendant so operates a vehicle on an “off street parking facility” (like a parking lot), then this defense will not apply.

As mentioned above, the prosecution has to prove each element of VC 14601.2 beyond a reasonable doubt, and this includes the defendant’s knowledge of their license suspension. So, if the jury has any reasonable doubt as to whether the defendant “knew” their license was suspended, then this should result in a “not guilty” verdict even if the defendant did, in fact, drive a vehicle with a DUI-suspended license. However, this situation rarely appears in VC 14601.2 prosecutions.

The reason why is that VC 14601.2 makes it easier for the prosecution to show that you “knew” about your license suspension. According to the statute, knowledge of the license suspension is “conclusively presumed” when the DMV sends notice to the defendant of the license suspension or when the defendant was present in court to learn of their license suspension. This means that, even in a case where the defendant initially learns of their license suspension, but then honestly forgets about the fact after a passage of time while their license is still suspended, then that defendant will likely still be found guilty of violating VC 14601.2. The “lack of knowledge” defense is most applicable when some technical irregularity occurs such that notice is not given to the defendant about the license suspension. Because the courts and DMV operate with some regularity, this type of oversight rarely happens. Still, your lawyer should investigate this issue if you are charged under VC 14601.2.