PinIn a provocative action this week, one Minnesota district court judge chose to ignore an important state Court of Appeals ruling (which we discussed just last week) and instead followed his own interpretation of a recent U.S. Supreme Court case when handling the case concerning an implied consent violation.
Clay County District Court Judge Steven Cahill decided to throw out a drunk driving charge against Angeliac Greenwaldt. Cahill said that Greenwaldt was simply exercising her legal right to refuse to submit to what amounted to an unreasonable search when she chose not to submit to a breath test after being pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving.
According to Cahill, prosecutors failed to show that there was any reason to support such an invasive search. Specifically, Cahill said that there was no evidence entered into the record to show that there was either consent on the part of Greenwaldt or exigent circumstances that would have necessitated the officer performing a warrantless search.
Judge Cahill refused to apply the recent State v. Bernard decision, which was handed down by the Court of Appeals earlier this month. According to Cahill, the ruling in Bernard was “unprecedented” and evidently not worthy of following. In Bernard, the Minnesota Court of Appeals decided that in cases where a police officer could have gotten a search warrant, either through consent of the suspect or due to the existence of exigent circumstances, a warrantless search would be deemed reasonable. Confusingly, the officer did not actually have to get the warrant; he simply needed to have been able to secure one had he wanted to.
Judge Cahill said that the Bernard opinion was not supported by prior precedent and that, as a result, he would ignore the decision and instead follow the example set in other cases. Cahill criticized the ruling that criminalizes a suspect’s refusal to submit to a breath test. Specifically, Cahill said that that if the government is allowed to force individuals to give up their constitutional right to be free from warrantless searches as a condition for being granted the privilege of driving, then it is just as likely that the state could force individuals to give up other fundamental rights.
Though Cahill refused to directly address the legality of Minnesota’s implied consent law, it is clear that he does not hold it in high esteem. Cahill said that district court judges across the state are in disagreement about the constitutionality of the implied consent law. The hope is that the issue is resolved in a clear and commanding way, putting an end to the uncertainty that began last year after the Supreme Court’s ruling concerning warrantless blood tests in Missouri.
Source: “District Court judge rejects Court of Appeals opinion,” by Elizabeth Ahlin, published at MinnLawyer.com.
