An Illinois man convicted of drunken driving in Indiana has asked the Illinois Supreme Court whether it was fair for Illinois authorities to suspend his driver's license.

In a petition for leave to appeal, Darold A. Miller Jr. contends that the state's decision to revoke his license violates the ''letter and spirit'' of the Illinois Driver's License Compact. 625 ILCS 5/6-703(a).

''The compact requires the secretary to give the same effect to petitioner's conduct reported by Indiana as he would if such conduct had occurred in Illinois,'' the petition contends. ''It does not say the report of conviction controls, but it is the conduct that controls.

''The goal is to provide uniformity among the members of the compact, and to make enforcement of licensing laws more equitable. To allow petitioner to be treated more harshly because his offense was committed in Indiana frustrates the purpose of the compact,'' the petition contends.

Miller was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in Newton County, Ind., on Jan. 9, 2005. According to his petition, Miller pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation and assessed $1,100 in fines and costs.

The Indiana court made a ''special finding,'' quoted in the petition, ordering ''that the Clerk of Newton County Superior Court is directed to transmit to the Illinois Secretary of State that the plea of the defendant, Darold A. Miller Jr., and accompanying sentence be treated as a Supervision Order pursuant to 730 ILCS 5/5-6-1(c) in the State of Illinois.'' Indiana apparently does not have court supervision comparable to that in Illinois.

The secretary of state suspended Miller's license anyway, so he challenged the decision in Sangamon County Circuit Court.

Circuit Judge Leslie J. Graves reversed the secretary of state and ordered that Miller's license be reinstated.

Graves concluded that the secretary of state improperly violated the compact when his office ''failed to give the same effect to conduct occurring out of the state, as it would had such conduct occurred in Illinois.''

''[P]laintiff's sentence is entitled to be treated as supervision under the provision of section 5-6-1(c) of the Unified Code of Corrections … in that the Indiana court specifically found that plaintiff should be granted court supervision,'' Graves held, as quoted in Miller's petition. 730 ILCS 5/5-6-1(c).

The 4th District Appellate Court, however, disagreed and reinstated the secretary of state's order to rescind Miller's driving privileges.

Justice Sue E. Myerscough wrote the opinion, which the court published at the request of the state; Justices Robert J. Steigmann and Robert W. Cook concurred. Miller v. White, No. 4-06-0673 (April 9, 2007).

Miller had pointed out that ''special findings'' are explicitly authorized by section 6-702 of the Vehicle Code, and argued that the secretary of state was wrong to ''ignore'' the Indiana judge's special finding that Miller's conviction be treated as supervision.

''However,'' Myerscough wrote, ''plaintiff has not cited, nor has our research revealed, authority for the proposition that a court sitting in another state has the authority to order the secretary how to treat citizens of this state who have been convicted of DUI or a 'substantially similar' offense in other states.''

The Appellate Court also noted that Indiana law does not appear to provide for supervision to a person convicted of drunken driving.

''It defies logic to give a court sitting in another jurisdiction the authority to require the secretary to treat a sentence as court supervision when the sentencing court could not impose such a sentence in the state in which it sits,'' Myerscough wrote.

The Appellate Court cited two cases to support its conclusions. In Schultz v. Edgar, 170 Ill.App.3d 36 (1988), an Illinois driver was convicted of DUI in Wisconsin, where his license was suspended for three months.

The Illinois secretary of state revoked the driver's privileges, but the circuit court overturned that decision, finding that the secretary could not ''add punishment on punishment.''

The Schultz court reversed, rejecting the plaintiff's argument that he might have received supervision had he been prosecuted in Illinois because he was a first-time offender.

Schultz held that ''this argument provides no basis to overturn the revocation of plaintiff's driver's license where he committed a DUI offense while on a Wisconsin highway and was therefore subject to the laws of that jurisdiction.''

''Furthermore, not every first-time DUI offender in Illinois is granted court supervision, which is a determination solely within the discretion of the trial court,'' the Schultz court held.

Miller counter in his petition to appeal that, unlike in Schultz, the Indiana judge specifically found him eligible for supervision.

The Appellate Court also rejected a would-have-had-supervision-in-Illinois argument in Mills v. Edgar, 178 Ill.App.3d 1054 (1989). In that case the court affirmed a suspension based on a Colorado conviction, finding the supervision argument too speculative.

But Miller contends that his eligibility for supervision is not speculative ''because the trial judge in the Indiana court stated its order was to be considered one of court supervision under Illinois law.''

Miller also noted that Illinois' supervision has benefited drivers in other states. An Illinois DUI conviction with supervision for a Pennsylvania man originally earned him a suspension in his home state. But the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania held that because the driver got supervision in Illinois, it could not be treated like a conviction in Pennsylvania. Felbaum v. DOT, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 860 A.2d 1168 (Pa. 2004).

Miller is represented by Ronald E. Boyer of Watseka.

The case is Darold A. Miller Jr. v. Jesse White, Secretary of State, No. 104815.