Posts Tagged St. Paul Criminal Defense Attorney

“Finally, Petitioner argues Mr. Jones was subjected to an unreasonable warrantless search. Contained within this argument the court finds Petitioner’s more persuasive assertion: Mr. Jones did not refuse to take a blood or urine test because he stated he would take a test once a warrant was obtained.” Recent order in Rice County DWI Implied Consent case (Names changed). So we haven’t blogged DWI in awhile and we’re gonna blow through this like Terry Tate enforcing an office. First of all, for total newbs, we just dropped “implied consent” on you. What’s that? The law that says “hey by virtue of driving in Minnesota, you consent anytime to have yourself tested for booze or drugs whenever we want.” You’d probably remember this from your driver’s license application, if it was on there, which it’s not, but ignorance isn’t a defense, so on we go.  Bottom line, besides the criminal charges, “State vs. you”, there’s the civil case, “You vs. Commissioner of Public Safety”, which you need to file within 30 days of receiving your notice of revocation. If you don’t do that, your license is gone.  Period.  Hard and fast deadline.  That’s the two sides of DWI law, the criminal, the civil.  So this comes from that challenge to the license revocation.  How about the criminal?  It was so good, the test refusal charges, the serious DWI Charge, was dismissed by the prosecutor upon our motion before we even got to a hearing.  The state has now has to prosecute the matter with no field sobriety tests, no alcohol concentration, no evidence.  How did it get so good? Because this guy called an attorney who understood what he needed to know right there, right then. We’ve written previously regarding the bombshell that opened up DWI litigation three years ago in Missouri v. McNeely. If you’re facing a DWI and you haven’t heard of this court case, the one liner states: “In those drunk-driving investigations where police officers can reasonably obtain a warrant before a blood sample can be drawn without significantly undermining the efficacy of the search, the Fourth Amendment mandates that they do so.”  That’s the Supreme Court of the United States; the highest Court in the land.  Blood, breath, and urine tests are all searches for fourth amendment purposes. (Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association). Some people thought it didn’t apply to Minnesota because we don’t force a test like Missouri.   Call it Minnesota nice, or laziness, whatever you want, but the bottom line is that a person is given a supposed “choice” on whether to take the test or not.  In other words, we say “we don’t wanna touch you or force you to do anything, but if you don’t subject yourself to this warrantless search, we’re gonna charge you with an even worse crime.”  So initially,some folks thought this didn’t apply to Minnesota.  Oops.  Two urine test cases from Minnesota get reversed by SCOTUS a few weeks later.  It suffices to say a lot of case law has… Read more {+}