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

摘要

Difficulties associated with conducting administrative license hearings regarding DWI offenses have often resulted in sporadic or ineffective use of administrative license revocation/suspension (ALR/ALS) laws around the United States. This project studied a unique solution, allowing telephonic participation at administrative license hearings in Utah, as a remedy to the problem of law enforcement officers failing to appear at ALR hearings. Methods employed to obtain pertinent information included interviews, focus groups, data analysis from State level driver license record databases (1995-2001), and a survey of law enforcement officers conducted in conjunction with the Utah Department of Public Safety. The evaluation focused on any impact on the number of ALR hearings held, the number of telephonic ALR hearings, the number of hearings where one or more participants failed to appear, and the outcome of all ALR hearings. Major findings of this study include the following. After the initiation of telephonic hearings in Utah, there was a statistically significant reduction (20%, p=0.01) of ALR hearings that resulted in the return of driver licenses due to the absence of the arresting law enforcement officers from administrative license hearings. Although this reduction cannot be entirely attributed to the use of telephonic hearings because the reduction began before the telephone method was implemented, 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 officers.