Posts Tagged St. Paul Criminal Lawyer

Bernard v. State of Minnesota, killing the DWI mill and restoring basic rights

We recently discussed a victory some weeks ago in which a person was able to avoid Minnesota DWI charges by following Alex DeMarco’s instructions to the letter at the police station.  The basic key:  Never submit, never refuse, ask for a warrant, every time.  That approach is based on recent rulings in Minnesota DWI law throwing out convictions for defendants whose fourth amendment rights were violated.  Had it been any other case, murder, burglary, drugs…the law would be clear.  It’s really simple.  Warrantless searches are unreasonable.  Only very precise exceptions can justify a search without a warrant, exceptions which are basically not even remotely applicable in a DWI case, despite decades of presumption to the contrary.  Today the very heart of DWI law in Minnesota, the criminal charge of DWI test refusal, THE ONLY mechanism by which test are obtained in Minnesota, was heard before the Supreme Court of the United States.  We wanted to update you so you can read the entire Transcript from Bernard‘s oral argument.    If you or anyone you know is facing a DWI, whether it’s in Faribault, or St. Paul, or Woodbury, or Minneapolis, All of Dakota County including Lakeville, Burnsville, Hastings, Apple Valley, or anywhere in Minnesota, contact us today to set up a free consultation.   Bernard v. State of Minnesota, killing the DWI mill and restoring basic rights was last modified: July 13th, 2016 by Alex DeMarco

Domestic Assault Law Changes in August

New domestic assault laws make arrest easier, dismissal harder On August 1, 2014, a new law goes into affect which broadens the basis on which a person may be arrested and charged with domestic assault.  It now includes provisions for misdemeanor arrest, and expands the time frame to 72 hours.  If you are charged with domestic assault, or someone you know has just been arrested for domestic assault, here’s why you need to involve a criminal defense attorney immediately. The politics of domestic assault continue to ignore the rights of the accused and discourage investigation and common sense. It is often politically incorrect to doubt the words of an accuser, particularly a woman Sadly, however, we have created a system that does provide incentive to manufacture domestic assault allegations, and for the accuser to stick to their false story.  As discussed previously at Minnesota Legal Defense, The system also makes it extremely difficult for the accuser to “drop charges” so to speak.  There are a number of attributes which make domestic assault so difficult from the very beginning:   (1) The speed with which various mechanisms move when accusations are made (2) The immediate isolation of the accused. (3) The affects on pending or soon to be initiated family law proceedings. (4) The ability of the accuser to continue to manufacture evidence at trial. From the moment 911 is called, a very fast process begins, and you’re going to jail. Law enforcement and prosecuting authorities take domestic assault very seriously, as well they should. According to a 2012 Domestic Violence Report citing to the 2010 Minnesota Crime Victim Survey, as many as 201,814 adults may have experienced domestic violence in 2010. Besides the wrongfulness of this act, the other concern of law enforcement is that perpetrators of domestic violence may go on to harm their victims repeatedly. Abusive relationships have been known to escalate quickly. No officer wants to be the one that did not respond to a 911 call only to find a murder has occurred. For this reason, police respond swiftly to domestic assault calls. The person that calls 911 often has a distinct advantage in that they will tell the first version of events. At that point, invariably, officers end up subject to a phenomenon known as confirmation bias. When they arrive on scene, they will be looking for evidence which confirms the facts of the initial call. The caller will also often be the first person interviewed at the scene, further securing this bias. From there, they will interview the suspect, and selectively record and put in their reports those portions of the story that confirm the accuser’s version of events. It’s for this reason that it is important to not talk to the police. You may think that you’re helping yourself and that you can prove your innocence, but the officer is most often looking for you to say the magic words that confirm any part of the accuser’s story. Frankly, any confirmation that you… Read more {+}

Terroristic threats: The Catchall Felony

“Touch me again, and I’m gonna knock you out.”  We’re Americans. We live in a society and in a culture that is no stranger to confrontation. The fact is we love fighting. We love to watch smack talk in sports. We love to see a baseball or football coach take an umpire or referee to task, spitting and yelling with the glare of rage in their eyes. We love watching guys in a movie engage in macho banter back and forth, and this aids in character development. Even our political discourse has become a dog fight, with right and left pundits yelling over each other, and the media purposefully seeks out confrontational and divisive topics less for our information than our entertainment. For better or for worse, this affects our interaction in everyday life. When we get pissed off, and when we’re looking to make a show and stir some drama up, we use fighting words. We put on a fighting face and take stand as a character of sorts. The frank truth is nobody takes it too seriously, and everyone knows it’s mostly hot air. You would think that wouldn’t be a crime. You would think actually hitting a guy in the face and giving him a black eye, or stealing, or damaging someone’s property would be a worse action. But guess what? At the most basic level, those are misdemeanors. Turns out going Joe Pesci with your mouth gets you charged with a Felony, a thing called Terroristic Threats.  That’s right. You might as well have kept your mouth shut and socked the dude in eye, because that’s only a misdemeanor, presuming you don’t have prior assaults and you don’t break any bones.  Now you’re a terrorist.  Ok, so punching a guy is not my legal advice. You want free advice? Here it is: Anyone who “unlawfully and feloniously directly or indirectly threatens to commit any crime of violence with the purpose to terrorize another or in a reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror” commits a terroristic threats. The critical distinction on which criminal activity turns in Terroristic Threats in Minnesota is the scienter requirement, or “mens rea.” That was for the other lawyers out there or the Catholic School kids that actually had to take Latin. That means your mindset. It doesn’t say “intentionally”, but in common language, it means you have to actually mean what you say in order to really be guilty of terroristic threats. You have to seriously and immediately mean that you’re going to hurt someone or their property, or you should have known that someone was going to be genuinely fearful you would cash the check your mouth is writing. In other words, it can’t be just posturing. “The test of whether words or phrases are harmless or threatening is the context in which they are used.” United States v. Prochaska, 222 F.2d 1 (7 Cir. 1955); United States v. Pennell, 144 F.Supp. 317 (N.D.Cal.1956). “ Thus the question… Read more {+}

Jury Acquits Client of Felony Terroristic Threats

The Felony Terroristic threats statute is a very broad offense. Minn. Stat. 609.713 provides “Whoever threatens, directly or indirectly, to commit any crime of violence with purpose to terrorize another” is guilty of a felony. An insincere “I’m gonna kill you” or “do that and your dead” can result in a felony charge. Client was charged with felony terroristic threats. It was alleged he confronted the mother of his child over the whereabouts of his child. She had disappeared with his daughter for nearly a year, and he had not seen or heard from her. He confronted her in a public place on the same morning her children were taken by social services. She manufactured a story that he had threatened to kill her boyfriend, who was with her, and that he reached for a knife. By entering evidence of the current child dispute and citing it as a motive for her to lie, and by noting the inconsistency of her testimony with the video, Alex De Marco secured a “not guilty” verdict on the charge of felony terroristic threats. The defense presented no witnesses other than the defendant. If you’ve been charged with terroristic threats, you should know it is one of the most difficult cases for the state to prove at trial if you have a lawyer that knows the law and the rules of evidence. Don’t just hire any lawyer. Invest in your defense. Call Cavaleri & De Marco today. 651-705-8829 Jury Acquits Client of Felony Terroristic Threats was last modified: May 7th, 2015 by Alex DeMarco