The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday rejected a Mexican citizen’s bid to strike down the state’s law that punishes those who drive without a valid license.
Fernando Castillo-Solis, an illegal immigrant who has lived in Georgia about a decade, had claimed the statute denied him due process or equal protection. Under state law, anyone living in Georgia for at least 30 days must have a state-issued license.
In January 2010, a Gwinnett County police officer pulled over a Chevrolet van driven by Castillo-Solis after determining from a computer check the vehicle’s registration had been suspended. Castillo-Solis was unable to produce a valid license and was charged for that and for not registering the van.
Castillo-Solis then filed a court challenge, seeking to have the driver’s license law found unconstitutional.
In Monday’s opinion, Justice David Nahmias said that Castillo-Solis, because he is an illegal immigrant, is ineligible to get a Georgia driver’s license. “To the consternation of generations of American teenagers, there is no fundamental right to a driver’s license,” Nahmias wrote.
Castillo-Solis’ attorney had contended that a retroactive amnesty provision in the law discriminates against non-Georgia citizens, because it allows a driver charged with not having a license to get that charge dismissed before trial by producing a valid Georgia license. Because Castillo-Solis cannot get a license, he cannot enjoy the benefits of that provision, the lawyer argued.
Nahmias said this was an incorrect interpretation of the law.
The “safe-harbor” provision does not allow a person cited for driving without a license to escape guilt by getting a license after the fact and then presenting it in court, he said. Instead, the provision simply allows a person who is licensed to drive to bring that license to court to show that he had a license but couldn’t produce it when a police officer asked him to.
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