For years, Florida clerks of court have been unlawfully suspending driver’s licenses for failure to pay costs associated with violations of municipal ordinances.
Anthony Cummings license was suspended in Marion County. On July 18, 2016, Mr. Cummings was arrested for sleeping outdoors and admitting he was experiencing homelessness. He was charged with open lodging, a municipal ordinance violation in contravention of Ocala City Ordinance 42-10(B)(2).
On February 10, 2017, the Marion County Clerk of Court notified the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) that Mr. Cummings failed to pay financial obligations for a criminal offense and thus instructed the DHSMV to suspend his license. Accordingly, the DHSMV suspended his license. On June 7, 2019, we filed a Motion to Correct the Court’s Order Assessing Costs and for Order Reinstating Driver’s License with the County Court of the Fifth Judicial Circuit (Marion County).
The motion argued that the license suspension was improper and must be reinstated because a license suspension is only permitted for a criminal offense. See Fla. Stat. § 322.245; Pridgen v. City of Auburndale, 430 So.2d 967, 968 (Fla. 2d DCA 1983). In Mr. Cummings’ case, he violated a municipal ordinance, not a criminal violation.
On August 9, 2019, in an en banc ruling, the County Court of the Fifth Judicial Circuit granted Mr. Cummings’ motion to correct sentence. The court found “that the Court’s suspension of Cummings’s driver’s license for failure to pay financial obligations for municipal ordinance violations was in error, not authorized by Florida law, and should be stricken from the Judgements.” Order Granting Mot. to Correct Illegal Sentence, p. 2 (Aug. 9, 2019).
We sent this order to the DHSMV, requested public records to determine how many similar cases there were throughout the state, and requested a call to discuss the ruling with the DHSMV. Attorneys for the DHSMV agreed with our position and the en banc ruling, and informed us that the department would advise all Florida clerks who were issuing notices of suspensions for municipal ordinances about their lack of authority to do so.
IMPACT
As a direct result of our advocacy, 13,487 driver’s license suspensions for violations of municipal ordinances have been lifted throughout the state for 7,557 people. So far, at least 533 licenses have been fully cleared and are able to be reinstated. (Many individuals have additional license suspensions for other charges.) Also because of our advocacy, the DHSMV updated its Uniform Traffic Citation manual.
HOW TO FIGURE OUT IF YOU WERE AFFECTED
People can figure out if they've been impacted in a few ways.
- They can check to see if their case was one of the ones cleared by their local clerk.
- they can contact their local clerk in the relevant counties and find out if their case was impacted.
- They can also contact the DMV.