City of
King County District Court,
No. 84199 and No. 84268
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MOTION
HEARING,
Prepared by Roger W. Knight
From compact disk supplied
by the King County District Court, Bellevue Division
using software made by
FTR Player, Ltd.
Prosecutor: Let’s take the Knight matter, Your
Honor. Mr. Knight.
Court: All right.
Prosecutor: It’s Cause No. MIC 84268 and Cause Number
MIC 84199. We’re set on
it for actually a motion hearing and a
readiness hearing.
Court: Hmm-Hm.
Prosecutor: I would imagine that the readiness
hearing in Cause Number MIC 84268
could in essence be heard as a motion hearing
given he’s filed the same or
similar materials in both cases.
Court: Okay.
Prosecutor: As I understand his argument Your Honor
is that a due process argument,
in relationship to his suspension for driving
while license suspended in
third degree for failure to pay his child
support. I believe his argument is
that and he can certainly correct me, I’ll
let him make his own argument,
is that they can’t make it driving while
license suspended a criminal
offense on his decree that occurred a number
of years ago.
Court: All right, Well Mr. Knight, these are your motions, so
you are the moving
party, so you get to go first.
Knight: Okay, As much as I would like this Court to
just toss the WorkFirst Act,
which is the statutory provision that
authorizes the Division of Child
Support and the
Department of Licensing to
suspend licenses for
nonpayment of child support, as a
multi-subject bill, I think before we get
there, we have to consider some other
issues. Like uh, did the Legislature
intend, under the Smith and Cruz test that
I spelled out in my pleadings, to
actually have a retroactive application of
old child support orders and old
child support arrearages because uh, I have
made some payments since I
left The Boeing Company. However they don’t bring me up to within 180
days of the effective date of the
statute. So application to me is a
retroactive application and so the Court
would have to decide whether the
Smith
and Cruz test, the Legislature
intended such application and I argue
that it clearly does not. If it did, then I would say that it is a bill
of
attainder and to the extent that nonpayment
of support might be
considered a criminal matter, even though
this State hasn’t had a criminal
nonpayment of support statute since the
Supreme Court tossed it as void
for vagueness in 1984, still you can think of
it as an ex post facto law if
there’s a criminal element. If you think of it as a civil non-criminal
statute, then you can think of it as a bill
of attainder providing for the
automatic suspension of all licenses upon
decision by an agency without
judicial trial against a group of persons
that were easily ascertainable, i.e.
existing support orders that were more than
180 days behind in
compliance with said support orders on
get there, I put in the
State v. Dolson defense, and a set of facts that they
did not properly suspend the license and
notify me of the suspend the
license and therefore give me with notice and
opportunity to be heard as
required by
how that is done under
State v Dolson. I understand
that the statute
changed a little bit since the time that Mr.
Dolson had his license
suspended.
But I would argue that there’s no dispute as any of the facts I
set forth in my declarations and the
documents that I attached to my
declarations by the
City. The
City has not filed any response at all to
my
motion.
So the undisputed facts are: the support order was entered in
1990, it has not been modified since then,
there has been no modification
to include a threat to suspend licenses since
then, and there is a statutory
provision,
RCW 26.09.170, that actually
prohibits modification of child
support orders for months gone by. While I may challenge that as
offensive to my right to due process of law
because it shuts off Civil Rule
60 type relief of any kind for any
reason. Still, until we find that as
unconstitutional, then I can argue that I’m
protected by it from increasing
the consequences of the obligation for months
gone by. So I would say,
that it can’t be applied to me in that
sense. But, in the
State v Dolson
argument, there is no dispute that I filled
out a form at the downtown
office of the Department of Licensing to
change my address.
Court: When was that?
Knight: That was uh, I believe
documents that I obtained from Lawna Knight
with the DOL and
documents that I obtained from the
City of
obtained from the
DOL, it appears that they
did not implement the change
in address at the time for the operator’s license,
but they implemented it
for the vehicle
registration.
Court: What did you change your address to?
Knight:
Court: And what was your prior address?
Knight:
Court: I’m sorry, (redacted)?
Knight:
Court: Okay. Go ahead.
Knight: And so, while the document that I filled out
apparently has been lost, my
subpoena dulces tecum to the
Department of
Licensing, and it’s all
attached to my declarations if you want me to
cite specific ones but
they’re attached to my declarations, as soon
as I obtained these
documents.
They didn’t actually obey it, they sent me some different
information that I did not ask for, but it
appears from the different
information, they didn’t implement the change
per the form, but neither do
they deny the existence of the document or
claim that it does not exist.
We don’t have the document from the
DOL that
I filled out. Yet it’s clear
that my vehicle registration, this, my
renew that I received in January 2002 was
mailed to my
(redacted for this web site), and that’s the address printed on both the
registration that uh, vehicle registration
that I obtained on
and the one that I obtained in February of
this year, to renew the vehicle
registration.
So, the Department of Licensing changed my address for my
vehicle registration, but they didn’t change
it for the motor vehicle
operating, they left it at my
until September. And then they claimed they changed it based
on
information received from the
Division of
Child Support. However, if you
look under
State v Dolson, while it is of a previous version of the statute,
that left the operator the licensee filling
out the form as the only
procedure, they added a different one, still
I was using a procedure that
was established by the statute. I was telling the
DOL, “Here’s where I’m
living now, here’s where I want the
information relevant to my operator’s
license and my vehicle registration to be
sent. And if you look, I obtained
when I renewed my license just recently,
obtained another form, a blank
form that shows, it’s effective for both
purposes. And the people at that
office told me and I can, if you want, I can
raise my hand and certify under
penalty of perjury under oath, they told me,
this was the form they’ve been
using for the last several years. And that would be the form that I filled
out and they sent it on down to
clear, they didn’t follow the
State v. Dolson rule. And on that basis, as
much as I would like the WorkFirst Act just
tossed out the door, you don’t
have to rule on the validity of the WorkFirst
Act to rule that my rights
under the suspension notification and uh
license notification statutes were
violated.
And other due process, because, here’s the system that the
Legislature set up, I went along with
it. They made the change for one
type of, uh, license, vehicle
registration. But not for the operator’s
license.
And because they didn’t make the change, and
they said they sent the
notification to a different address than the
one I told them to, then it’s not
notice reasonably calculated to apprise me of
the pendency of their
suspension.
Therefore under
suspension itself is invalid. Regardless of whether the WorkFirst Act is
valid, whether it’s validly applied to me,
and whether it can be applied to
me without being a bill of attainder.
Court: All right, let’s hear from the prosecutor.
Prosecutor: Your Honor, There is no meritorious
argument. He was cited on January
the 21st, the license being suspended, he got
notice on
at the address where he lives presently. Where he’s been saying he sent
the information.
Knight: No. No.
Court: I’m sorry,
Knight: No, it’s not,
Court: Sir, please this is the prosecutor’s opportunity. I didn’t follow what he
just said,
Prosecutor: The document sent to Mr. Knight,
Court: Which one?
Prosecutor: Pardon?
Court: Which one you are referring to?
Prosecutor: The Order of Suspension,
Court: All right.
Prosecutor: dated
South,
Knight: But that’s not the address
Court: Sir, please.
Knight: Okay, I’m sorry.
Court: Go ahead, Mr. Stewart.
Prosecutor: That’s it, Your Honor.
Court: Mr. Knight, you included in your materials, in Exhibit
E, this is your first
motion.
A letter that you received from the
City of
for driving while suspended violation, the
date of this letter is
Knight: You’re talking about my first declaration?
Court: I’m taking about your very first motion that you
filed,
Knight: Okay, let me see what the,
Court: This is Exhibit E to that declaration.
Knight: Okay.
Okay. The motion to dismiss, Ah.
Exhibit E. Okay, they sent this
letter,
Court:
Knight: Right,
Court: that letter indicates you received a ticket for
driving while license suspended.
The two cases you’re here on today occurred
on January 22, and February 20th.
Sir, what DOL needs to show is that they sent
notice to the known address that
they have.
However, if you have actual notice because of the virtue of the fact
that you were cited by another jurisdiction,
how does that not completely
eliminate your argument that you did not know
that your license was suspended?
Knight: Well, it’s not just that, if you read the
State
v. Dolson decision,
Court: I’ve read it.
Knight: It’s the opportunity to be heard. And they actually, in
State v. Dolson,
it was like
the third driving while license suspended
charge that the man had been charged
with.
If you notice that City of
incidentally.
Court: That’s because they have a tow ordinance.
Knight: Well, they, they have their own ordinance and
I’m challenging that in federal
court under
section 1983, but that’s another
matter. But in
State v. Dolson,
it
was like the third charge the man had been
charged with. He had two other
driving while license suspended
convictions. They found that did not
provide
constructive notice because the hearing that
he would have been able to obtain
had he been notified originally, he was
deprived of, and it was the loss of the
hearing.
Court: But, but what you missing my point. This is a criminal prosecution. This isn’t
even an issue whether or not the suspension
is valid because that’s a collateral
attack on the suspension itself. Whether you can be suspended or should be
suspended for nonpayment of child
support. The issue here is whether you
had
notice.
And what I’m seeing is in the papers you’ve given me is a citation from
know it appears to the court that sir you
were on notice that there was a problem
with your license.
Knight: Well, the thing is, if you look at that the
State
v Dolson case arose from a
criminal charge. He didn’t, Mr. Dolson did not file a civil
case against the
Court: I understand the
Dolson
case. But I’m talking about actual
notice.
Knight: Okay.
Well, it was actual notice, but they never sent me the paperwork. In fact
the only way I got the paperwork from the
DOL
was in response to my discovery
request in this case. The thing is, I’m not saying that there was
not actual notice,
or constructive notice, but the opportunity
to be heard.
Court: But that’s a separate matter. That’s a collateral attack on the suspension
itself,
which I don’t have the jurisdiction
over. All I have to have in this case is
whether or not you had notice. Actual or constructive, which given the fact
that
you got two in a row in these cases, and you
had one proceeding it, the court
would find that you had a problem with your
license.
Knight: What I’m arguing is that under
State v
Dolson that was not sufficient, it was the
opportunity to be heard. And in a criminal case,
State v Dolson
arose from the
third criminal charge filed against Mr.
Dolson. He could make that collateral
attack.
And the State Supreme Court essentially tossed all three convictions and
the suspension on that basis.
Court: I understand.
Knight: So, the
State Supreme Court had the
jurisdiction to do that, the trial court that
decision it was reviewing the trial court had
that. And my extension, you, being
the trial court, Your Honor, have the
jurisdiction to entertain a collateral attack
upon the license suspension.
Court: Well, sir, what I’m going to find based upon the
evidence I have in front of me is
that what DOL has, based upon the records
that were presented to the court, is
that their last known address for you was the
one that they had in their file. They
don’t have a record of a change of
address. You indicate that you sent one,
we
don’t have any proof of that except for your
statement. So
DOL is required to
send notice to their last address of
record. Their records indicate that the
address
they sent it to was the one that the notice
sent to. So for that reason, I’m finding
that they sent to the address they were
supposed to send it to. Moreover, I’m
finding that you had actual notice of the suspension
because of the violation
citation that you received in
set for trial I think in May,
Knight: Are you gonna decide the other issues having
decided the issue of fact?
Court: Well the issue before me was whether or not the case
should be dismissed based
upon lack of notice. This court does not have jurisdiction to hear
collateral
issues of whether or not the Legislature is
empowered to adopt the WorkFirst
law.
That’s a collateral attack on the licensing scheme that I don’t have
jurisdiction to hear that issue. So I’m not going to hear it.
If the back button does not take you there, click Home to go to the Index page of this Antipeonage Act Website, click Enemies for the main Enemies page, click Letters for the Letters page, and click Allies for the Allies page. Click 84199 to get to the main page for this case. Or you can use the Antipeonage Act Site Map.