Minneapolis Drunk Driving Defense Lawyer Blog

A recent story out of Woodbury, Minnesota poses interesting legal and factual questions in the area of Minnesota’s driving while impaired and implied consent laws. Police claim that a 23-year-old Wright County man was driving in the Washington County, Minnesota community when a Woodbury Police officer conducted a traffic stop.

Law enforcement claims that garage break-ins in the area had police on edge and a Woodbury resident reportedly called authorities to report a suspicious person. Law enforcement made an investigatory stop of the 23-year-old South Haven, Minnesota man, shortly after 1:30 in the morning on May 13--apparently linked to the alleged suspicious person report.

Rice county officials accuse a 20-year-old man of driving drunk and other offenses after a deputy responded to the scene of a car accident Sunday. Authorities claim that the deputy found the 20-year-old naked in the back seat of a car that had run off the road and crashed into a tree line. Law enforcement says that the man smelled of alcohol and that the deputy investigated the man for allegedly driving while impaired allegations.

However, the deputy also says that a naked female was found in the back seat of the car. Upon further investigation, Rice County prosecutors claim that the girl is only 13-year-old, and law enforcement believes that the man had engaged in inappropriate contact with the girl. The Rice County Sheriff’s Office says that the girl told authorities that she had been at a party and the male had offered to give her a ride home.

If you have a criminal DWI case or criminal DWI test refusal case, and/or civil implied consent driver's license revocation cases pending, you may have heard of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in McNeely v. Missouri issued 4-17-13. In McNeely the U.S. Supreme Court held that Warrantless DWI Tests are illegal without consent or "exigency circumstances."  The U.S. Supreme Court said that Missouri could not take a non-consensual blood test from a driver in a standard DWI case (no accident) without either a warrant OR a showing of special circumstances like an emergency stemming from injured persons in a car accident (i.e. "exigent circumstances"). In McNeely, consent was not an issue since the driver refused to consent to the test.  The U.S. Supreme Court specifically held that "Exigent Circumstances" do NOT exist just because alcohol exists in every DWI case. I have been arguing the same thing in many cases in Minnesota since at least 2008, as have many other expert Minnesota criminal defense attys.  
The Minnesota Supreme Court has dodged the issue, in some respects, because they refuse to grapple with the issue of coerced "consent" in "implied consent" driver's license revocation cases.  NOW our Minnesota state Courts will be forced  to deal with the issue head on. 

Many people may think that law enforcement only makes drunk driving arrests in the evening or at night. While the majority of driving while impaired allegations may arise at the end of the day, from time-to-time police may arrest a driver in the morning. A recent story carried by WCCO television in the Twin Cities covered the topic of morning DWI arrests.

Police claim that the majority of morning DWI arrests fall into two main categories—those involving chronic drinkers, and those who may have had too much to drink the night before and may not realize that alcohol remains in their system. We have previously spoken about the dissipation of alcohol in a person’s system in a few contexts, but not in the context of a morning DWI arrest.