Minnesota DWI DUI Lawyer, Minneapolis Criminal Defense Attorney

Posts Tagged ‘driving while impaired’

Minnesota DWI Crackdown and Safety Reminders During December

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

As thousands of people hit the roads over December and the ensuing holidays, look for an increase in DWI patrols cracking down on drunk drivers from most local law enforcement agencies across Minnesota.

This statewide holiday DWI enforcement effort happens every year and is an effort to fight against the potentially deadly and dangerous period leading up to and around the Holiday season. Law enforcement officers will encourage motorists to make sure they make safe decisions and will identify and arrest individuals who will be driving while impaired.

As has been reported elsewhere, a great example of this increased enforcement effort can be found in Crow Wing County. In this county all law enforcement agencies actively participate in various enforcement projects which are backed by their own safety coalition called the Crow Wing County Passenger Safety Coalition.

This Minnesota DWI enforcement effort is a part of a federal traffic safety program dubbed as Towards Zero Deaths (TZD), a program funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The goal of the program is to create a safe driving culture in Minnesota through safe and smart driving behavior (which recent stats show is gaining support). TZD is focusing on the application of education, enforcement, engineering and emergency trauma response.

With Christmas parties and other celebrations, December is always a deadly time on Minnesota roads. In 2008 to 2010 in Minnesota, there were 89 traffic fatalities during the month of December in which 24 of these deaths were due to drunk driving. The record shows that the Minnesota’s alcohol-related road fatalities’ average each year is 170 deaths (av of the last five years). This makes up for one third of annual traffic fatalities of the entire state.

The good news is number of road fatalities in recent years has been declining. In 2010, statistics showed 131 deaths due to drunk driving which is the lowest number on record. According to State Patrol, the road tragedies were prevented by enhanced enforcement campaigns. These campaigns decreased the alcohol-related fatalities while causing over 30,000 DWI arrests annually. The DWI ratio to date is one out of seven drivers in Minnesota has a DWI on record.

Ways To Avoid The Dangers of Drunk Driving

A State Patrol officer advised the public to avoid the consequences of driving while impaired and keep away from the high costs and personal grief caused by a DUI in Minnesota by simple planning. The dangers of driving drunk can be avoided when an individual designates a sober driver, takes public transportation or a cab, or spends the night at the celebration’s venue. Relatives must also be willing to offer a safe ride if necessary.

Sober motorists can also help avoid alcohol-related road accidents by calling 911 to report any suspicious driving behavior and include in their report the license plate and location.

Mandatory Penalties and Sentences for DWI

A first-time DWI charge carries a maximum fine of $1,000 and/or jail time of up to 90 days, which is equivalent to any potential misdemeanor statutory penalty. More stringent DWI sanctions will be imposed to drivers with BAC level of 0.16 or over. Stronger penalties are also waiting for repeat DWI offenders as stated in DWI Mandatory Penalties and Sentences.

What To Do If You Get a DWI in Minnesota

Celebrate the holidays safely by avoiding the deadly combination of drinking and driving. However, if you are charged with DWI in Minnesota, you can potentially escape from harsh sentencing with the help of an experienced Minnesota DWI attorney immediately. Douglas T. Kans is willing to provide you with comprehensive legal services for the best possible resolution of your DWI/DUI case. You can contact Kans Law Firm, LLC at (952) 835-6314 for a free case review.

Tags: Crow Wing County, driving while impaired, drunk driving, Minnesota DWI, Towards Zero Deaths
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More Minnesota Counties Adopt e-Charging System to Streamline DWI

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

To help streamline DWI enforcement efforts, more counties in Minnesota are considering adopting the e-charging system. This electronic system, which is currently used in Otter Tail County and most metro counties within the Twin Cities, will now soon be implemented in Wadena County. Other counties that will soon likely adopt the system are Todd, Douglas, and Morrison counties.

Wadena will soon be among Northern Minnesota’s first counties to install the system in its squad cars which will be linked directly to the courthouse. A meeting held on Oct.19 made the commissioners aware of the forthcoming system installation.

What is the e-Charging System?

The four part e-charging system facilitates the electronic processing of criminal complaints for individuals charged with driving while impaired, various citations, incident referrals, as well as DWI administrative forms. The e-charging system makes it possible for police departments and deputies of the county sheriff to forward DWI and other citations and traffic tickets electronically straight to the courthouse from their squad cars. The prosecutors have the capability to process warrants and summons electronically, and are able to easily submit complaints to the courts.

Through the e-charging system, the law enforcement records clerks can also refer DWI incidents to the offices of prosecutors for the purpose of preparing criminal complaints. In addition, this system makes the law enforcement officers capable of electronically submitting the necessary DWI paperwork for DWI stops to the state.

State wide goal

According to reports, most Minnesota counties are taking the initial steps to implement electronic complaints and e-ticket charging. In 2014, the e-charging system is expected to be used statewide. The electronic system aims to ultimately have a paperless judicial system in Minnesota by electronically transmitting data from police squad cars straight to county courthouses. In Wadena County alone, the paperless judicial system along with reduced staffing is estimated to save the county around $100,000 each year.

e-Charging System Implementation

Reports indicate that the hardware for the e-charging system is already installed in squad cars in Wadena County. The only remaining steps to take for the system to be fully functional is the purchase the software program, having the software installed and getting services in place for the maintenance of the system.

From a criminal defense attorney’s perspective, this new system seems to make a lot of sense. In the past, on occasion, my office has been forced to wait for police officers to submit their paper work (i.e. narrative statements of the incident) to their respective prosecutor’s offices prior to us being given access. It is our goal to obtain police reports on behalf of our clients as quickly as possible to allow us to review the report with our client when the incident is still fresh in their minds.

In addition, when an individual is arrested and held in jail without bail, quite often a Minnesota Criminal Lawyer is contacted to try to obtain their release. This requires contacting the prosecutor and judge to request bail being set or for the individual to be released on their own recognizance. It is imperative that Minnesota Criminal Attorneys , prosecutors and judges have all the information surrounding the incident from the police as quickly as possible in order for an informed decision to be made with regard to setting release conditions. My hope is that the e-charging system helps facilitate this as well.

Tags: driving while impaired, e-charging system, twin cities, wadena county
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4,000 Minnesota Drunk Driving Cases In Limbo – Full Explanation

Friday, August 26th, 2011

As we touched on in the last blog post and reported on back in a March in a blog post entitled “Judge rules on limitations of Intoxilyzer 5000 after challenge from Minneapolis DWI Attorneys” the high court of the state granted the motion by a coalition of Minnesota defense attorneys requesting each DWI case in the state of Minnesota remain on hold until the appeal regarding the Intoxilyzer 5000EN is complete.

The Intoxilyzer is used by police officers to determine the level of blood alcohol content of a driver believed to be driving while impaired. It uses sound-infrared spectroscopy in measuring the absorption of light of molecules in the air breathed out by a driver.

However, since the result of intoxilyzer is determined by a computer source code inside the intoxilyzer, many DWI attorneys believed that it creates discrepancies.

The motion puts over 4,000 cases of implied consent and DWI on hold while awaiting the issuance of final order by the Supreme Court of Minnesota on whether the results of the intoxilyzer tests are considered reliable.

The District Judge of Scott County, ruled in March that even though the controversial computer source code of the device can contain errors, these errors are not sufficient to affect the results’ accuracy. This ruling was created after Minneapolis DWI attorneys challenged the accuracy of intoxilyzer 5000.

The order of the District Judge consisting of 122 pages followed a legal battle of five years both in the state and the federal courts which involved attorneys of the 4,000 accused drunk drivers in Minnesota’s 69 counties. The order stops prosecutors and judges at the moment from pursuing the cases.

The DWI cases returned to their respective home districts after the ruling. Defense lawyers made their appeal to which the Supreme Court agreed for case hearing. There is no schedule on oral arguments before the Supreme Court yet.

The order states that the consolidation of these 4,000 cases before a single judge is for prevention of similar court battles as well as for inconsistency of ruling, and for preservation of resources. Chief Justice Lorie Gildea believes that putting the cases on hold serves the same purpose. Most Minnesota criminal lawyers are pleased with the ruling and consider that the order would cause DWI cases to inefficiently bounce through the system and drive up the cost of defense for their clients.

A total of 264 units of Intoxilyzer are phased out by the state to make way for Datamaster DMT machine. The new breath-testing device is due for release the next few months following the completion of training and testing at the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Stay tuned for a future blog post where we’ll take a more detailed look at the Datamaster DMT breath testing machine.

Regardless of what breath testing device is used to measure your blood alcohol level, a DWI charge must always be taken seriously. If you happen to be charged with DWI in Minnesota, you should immediately contact an experienced and well-trained Minneapolis DWI Lawyer to defend your DWI case. Douglas T. Kans, a respected Minnesota Criminal Lawyer, is always ready to provide you with comprehensive legal services for the best possible resolution of your DWI/DUI case. You may contact Kans Law Firm, LLC at (952) 835-6314 for a free case review.

Tags: DataMaster DMT, driving while impaired, drunk driving, Intoxilyzer, Minnesota DWI Defense
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Fewer University of Minnesota Area DWI Arrests

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

It has been reported that records at both the University of Minnesota Police Department and Minneapolis Police Department show that DUI charges around the campus have significantly reduced since the year 2003.

Minnesota Daily reports that 33 people have been arrested with driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) in neighborhoods that surround the campus since the start of this year. Averaging at 6 DWI charges each month, the number of arrests is surprisingly low compared to the DWI arrests in the past two years which averaged at about 8 DWI monthly arrests, according to University Police Deputy Chief Chuck Miner.

Records reveal that the highest number of DWI arrests in areas surrounding Minnesota campus was in the year 2003 when 220 drunk driving offenders were arrested as reported by University police. The DWI arrests have significantly decreased each year since then.

According to Miner, most DWI offenders are individuals just passing through the Minnesota campus area and are not actually students from the campus. He also summarized that students are more likely to be charged with public alcohol consumption, since many are not driving , but rather walking to houses.

Sgt. Steve McCarthy of the Minneapolis Police Department believes that one likely reason there are fewer recently reported DWI or DUI arrests is that the Minneapolis police officers don’t patrol the area as much as the University police.

DWI charges are generally the result of drivers showing erratic driving behavior and subsequently being pulled over, says Miner. Although DWI offenders are not likely to get maximum sentence, a driver charged with DWI the first time may be sentenced with imprisonment of a maximum of 90 days and a fine of $1,000 for offense of misdemeanor if the offender complied with a BAC test and no other offenses were charged. An offender charged with DWI four times within a period of 10 years can be charged with a Felony or First Degree DWI and may face a fine of $14,000 and imprisonment of up to 7 years.

If you have been charged for DWI in the Twin Cities Minnesota, contacting a Minnesota Criminal Lawyer is your best option. Douglas T. Kans, an experienced Minneapolis DWI Attorney will provide you with comprehensive legal services that you need in order to ensure the best possible resolution of your DWI case. Feel free to contact Kans Law Firm at (888) 972-6060 for a free case review.

Tags: driving while impaired, drunk driving, dwi arrest, dwi charge, twin cities dwi
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Minnesota DWI Implied Consent Test Certification: Is Defective Good Enough?

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

On March 30, 2010, the Minnesota Court of Appeals filed an unpublished opinion in a case entitled Kruckow v. Comissioner of Public Safety, in which the petitioner, Ms. Kruckow, challenged the revocation of her driver’s license under Minnesota’s Implied Consent law with two arguments: First, she challenged the certification of her test results because it appeared that the officer had certified her urine test results before the test results were actually known; and second, she argued that her procedural due process rights had been violated because the test results weren’t certified properly. The Appellate Court disagreed.

Police officers must comply with certification requirements when determining whether there is probable cause to request an individual suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol to submit to a breath, urine or blood test under the Implied Consent law in Minnesota, according to Minnesota Statute section 169A.52 subd. 4(a), which reads:

“Upon certification by the peace officer that there existed probable cause to believe the person had been driving, operating, or in physical control of a motor vehicle in violation of section 169A.20 (driving while impaired) and that the person submitted to a test and the test results indicate an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more or the presence of a controlled substance listed in schedule I or II . . . then the commissioner shall revoke the person’s license. . .”

This certification is really line nine on the Implied Consent form; officers check the box next to line nine once they have the results of a person’s blood, breath or urine test and those results indicate an alcohol concentration of over 0.08. The officer then signs the form and this is the certification to which the statute refers.

Kruckow challenged the certification in her case because the signature and the checking of the box in line nine were in a different color ink and she argued it appeared as though the box had been checked and the signature completed before her urine test results had been returned.

In disagreeing with Kruckow, the Appellate Court cited to a case entitled Johnson v. Commissioner of Public Safety, decided in 2006, in which the Court of Appeals stated that even when a peace officer’s certificate is defectively completed, as long as the officer provides other supporting documentation – like the officer’s narrative report, the notice of order and revocation and the test results showing the individual’s blood alcohol was over the legal limit – the certification is proper.

The second argument Krukcow made unsuccessfully was that her procedural due process rights had been violated because of the improper certification. The Court again disagreed and cited to Johnson, stating that the alleged improper certification had not created “a direct and personal harm,” which is what is required to prove a procedural due process violation. In this case as well, the Court stated that because it was undisputed that Kruckow’s urine test results were 0.18, she also had not proven a direct and personal harm, which would have given her due process argument merit.

Tags: certification, driving while impaired, DUI, implied consent, Implied Consent Law, license revocation, Minnesota DWI, urine test
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