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Looking like a 5th Straight Year Without Minnesota Alcohol-Related Death on New Year’s

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013

The Minnesota State Patrol described celebrations on New Year’s Eve as controlled, as there were reports of only average numbers of DWI arrests and only one fatal accident in Minnesota.

An accident in northeastern Minnesota killed a Bigfork resident on Monday afternoon. The 27-year-old man died after his car collided with a semi-trailer truck in Itasca County.

The state’s Department of Public Safety stated, however, that should the accident not be caused by the influence of alcohol, then it should be Minnesota’s fifth year in a row without alcohol-related death on both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

Minnesota’s State Patrol stepped up enforcement looking for impaired drivers on the road as part of its initiative known as “Toward Zero Death”.

Only 25 DWI arrests were reported in Minnesota on New Year’s Eve. According to a State Patrol spokesman, this is a number comparable to a typical weekend night. He believes that individuals may have chosen to either assign a sober driver or to stay put in one venue. Full numbers have not yet been available for both Monday and Tuesday.

The State Patrol spokesman states that although the low numbers present to be a positive sign, it does not mean that they can ease off or rest by any means. For the last five years, Minnesota has averaged 295 DWI arrests on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Each year, an average of 100 individuals in Minnesota die due to drunk driving accidents.

During the past few years, New Year’s Eve in Minnesota has resulted in hundreds of arrests and thousands of dollars in fines and time in jail. The St. Louis County Chief states that approximately 67% of those arrested for DWI are so mortified with being arrested and with the entire legal process that they do not get charged again.

In Minnesota, a first time DWI offense could result in a thousand dollars in fines, up to 90 days behind bars, and rendering one’s driver’s license useless.

According to state officials, it all boils down to acting responsibly and making sound decisions. Both drivers and passengers should always remember to buckle up and to plan for a sober ride. Individuals should also report drunk drivers to 911. This year, Metro Transit offered free rides on New Year’s Eve from 6 p.m. until the last scheduled trip on light rail and buses.

The last alcohol-related fatality occurring on New Year’s in Minnesota was in 2008. DPS data shows that from 2002 to 2007, there were seven deaths caused by drunken drivers on New Years.

Hiring a DWI Lawyer

If you are charged with DWI in the state of Minnesota, call the Kans Law Firm, LLC right away at (952) 835-6314 for a free consultation regarding your case.

Tags: dwi deaths, Minnesota, New Years
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Year Long Minnesota DWI Enforcement Campaign Begins

Saturday, December 1st, 2012

Minnesota’s Department of Public Safety recently announced it began increasing its DWI enforcement across the state right before the Thanksgiving holiday. The Department of Public Safety is trying a new approach of focusing resources and police manpower on 13 of the counties in the state that have the highest incidents of death and serious injury related to drunk driving collisions.
The state drew up a list of the thirteen counties that had the combination of the highest drunk driving deaths and drunk driving injuries last year. The unlucky counties are as follows:

1.   Hennepin
2.   Ramsey
3.   St. Louis
4.   Anoka
5.   Dakota
6.   Olmsted
7.   Washington
8.   Stearns
9.   Wright
10. Sherburne
11. Becker
12. Meeker
13. Otter Tail

Among the new additions are Becker, Meeker and Otter Tail counties. These additions replaced the now slightly less dangerous counties of Carver, Rice and Scott.

The counties that made the state’s list of the worst combined to make up nearly half of the state’s total drunk driving deaths (160) and more than fifty percent of the injuries that resulted from drunk driving wrecks (436) that took place between 2009 and 2011. Minnesota has 87 counties, which means that these 13 counties collectively saw as many drunk driving deaths and serious injuries as the other 74 counties combined.

The state has decided it will allocate money to ensure that law enforcement agencies in those districts are able to maintain stepped up patrols throughout September of 2013. The money will come from a grant from the federal government aimed at curbing deaths associated with intoxicated driving.

The MN Department of Safety says that law enforcement agencies in the selected counties will begin using special techniques designed to raise public awareness about the campaign. These approaches include the use of electronic message boards and heavier than normal police presence on roadways throughout the region. Ads will also be placed across the state warning Minnesotans about the increased push to crack down on drunk drivers.

The Minnesota DPS chose Thanksgiving to roll out the new program because the holiday period typically has among the highest incidents of drunk driving each year. The Wednesday through Sunday period around Thanksgiving saw 11 deaths between 2009 and 2011, six of which were connected with a drunk driver. During that same period of time, the Thanksgiving holiday also resulted in 1,631 arrests for driving while intoxicated and is thus fertile ground for any overly zealous police officers.

Though it goes without saying, if you live in any of the above mentioned counties it certainly bears repeating that the harm associated with a DWI conviction is great and should be avoided at all costs. Between the thousands of dollars in fines, the loss of your driving privileges and possible jail time, a DWI can be a very expensive and painful proposition. Given the new federal grant to Minnesota, police departments in the selected areas will have additional money to devote to keeping their officers out on the roadways. The police will be looking for any sign of possible intoxication and you should take steps to ensure you are not caught up in their dragnet.

Source: “Washington County Makes the List for Most Drunk Driving Injuries, Fatalities,” by Hannah Gruber, published at Woodbury.Patch.com.

Tags: arrests, DWI Enforcement, Minnesota
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Minnesota’s 2011 DWI Figures Reveal Deaths Are Down But Arrests Are Up

Tuesday, September 11th, 2012

Recent figures released by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety reveal the final DWI tally from 2011 and the numbers appear to mark an improvement. The survey shows that the state saw 111 deaths due to drunk driving, a figure which represents a 40% drop in such deaths over the 185 which occurred just a decade ago.

Though this is great news in terms of the safety of Minnesota’s roadways, law enforcement officials have said this will not change the fact that driving while intoxicated remains a top priority for officers across the state. Even with the 40% reduction, officials say that DWI-related crashed still make up a third of the state’s yearly traffic fatalities and they are determined to bring that percentage down.

Looking at the numbers from a slightly larger span of time reveals interesting facts. First, between 2007 and 2011, there were 651 deaths due to drunk driving across the state, meaning that the average for this span of time was right at 130 deaths per year. Males in Minnesota received a disproportionate share of the state’s DWIs, at 73 percent. Young drivers were the most likely age group to be arrested for drunk driving, with 42 percent of arrests involving those between the ages of 20 and 29. Surprisingly, given the state’s drinking age, one out of every 15 arrests for DWI were for those under the age of 21. Most worrisome for those of us out for a drive are the 1,265 people in the state who have each managed to rack up 10 or more DWI convictions.

Some bad news contained in the recent report involves the number of Minnesotans swept up in the state’s enforcement campaign. Between 2007 and 2011 a shocking 166,962 drivers in Minnesota were arrested for driving while intoxicated. Last year alone the number clocked in at 29,257, with nearly half the arrests occurring in the Twin Cities area. This means that statewide one out of every seven drivers has a DWI on their motor vehicle record.

Seventy-six percent of those charged with DWI in 2011 were eventually convicted of the crime; a figure that is likely to increase as the typical rate hovers closer to 85 percent. The conviction rate was far from uniform, with wide disparities seen depending on where in the state you were arrested. The following five counties saw the state’s highest DWI conviction rates in 2011: Red Lake County (93%), Lyon County (92%), Wilkin County (92%), Hubbard County (91%) and Polk County (90%). These rates were drastically higher than those seen in the counties with the lowest DWI conviction rates including Hennepin County (68%), Lincoln County (64%) and the lowest in the state, Lake of the Woods County, where only 60 percent of those arrested for DWI are eventually convicted.

Source: “Minnesota drunken-driving deaths down 40% since 2002,” by Staff Report, published at StarTribune.com.

Tags: arrests, DWI, Minnesota, statistics
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Minnesota Court Issues Ruling on Temporary Licenses in DWI Cases.

Saturday, September 1st, 2012

In a recent unpublished decision from the Minnesota Court of Appeals, the court addressed the issue of whether a driver is legally entitled to a seven (7) day temporary driver’s license, prior to their driver’s license becoming revoked as the result of a DWI charge and testing above the legal limit of having a blood alcohol concentration of .08 or more. In other words, as a result of circumstances, what if the temporary is only for four (4) days? This is the exact issue the court addressed in the present case.

As a background, generally when a driver submits to chemical test of his or her blood, breath, or urine, they will subsequently receive a Notice of Revocation thereby revoking their privileges to drive a motor vehicle in Minnesota. If the test submitted to is a breath test, then generally the driver will receive his notice on the same day as the offense. However, if the test happens to be a blood or urine test, then those tests are sent out to a lab for testing and the results may not be known for several weeks. In those cases, the notices of revocation are mailed at a later time by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Furthermore, usually in these situations, the revocation date is usually ten (10) days from the notice date to allow three (3) days for mailing.

In the present case, the driver was arrested for DWI on February 27, 2011 and submitted to a urine test on that date. On May 23, 2011 the Department of Public Safety sent the driver a notice of revocation making his driver’s license revocation effective as of May 30, 2011 only allowing him a four (4) day temporary license as a result of the delay in mailing. The driver’s attorney prudently argued the his clients due process rights were violated by, in essence, only receiving a four day notice thereby violating a Minnesota statutory requirement. The lower District Court Judge agreed and rescinded the driver’s license revocation. The Commissioner of Public Safety appealed.

On appeal, the Commissioner argued that the lower court was wrong because Minnesota Law does not, by statute, require that a driver receive a seven-day notice prior to being revoked. The Minnesota Court of Appeals, agreeing with this position, cited the statute indicating that it only requires that if the notice is mailed, as opposed to personally served, as with breath tests, it is deemed received by the driver three days from the mailing date.

The Minnesota Court Appeals, in making its distinction, further found that the district court was mistaken in its earlier ruling because it relied on a separate part of the statute that only refers to a requirement of a seven day temporary when a police officer is immediately serving the notice of revocation on the driver and not when the notice is later mailed. This generally happens when there is an immediate test result on the day of arrest. As stated, immediate results occur in breath test cases or when the driver refuses to submit to chemical testing. In the present case, which involved a urine test, the driver did not have his license immediately revoked, but received his notice almost three months later.

Tags: DWI, Minnesota, temporary license
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Minnesota Supreme Court Finds Intoxilyzer Results Reliable

Saturday, June 30th, 2012

The Minnesota Supreme Court this week handed down an important decision affecting the lives of thousands of Minnesotans accused of drunk driving. The Court released its opinion this Wednesday in the case concerning problems with the source code that operates the Intoxilyzer 5000EN, the device used by police departments across the state to check blood alcohol levels.

In a 4-3 decision, the high court upheld a lower court’s opinion and ruled that while the source code of the device may contain errors, the device itself is sufficiently reliable. The Court said that the lower court did not abuse its discretion when it denied defendants’ motions to exclude any and all results that were the product of the Intoxilyzer 5000EN from their DUI trials. The justices decided that the state successfully demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that the device is reliable and unaffected by supposed source code issues. As a result, the Court said defense attorneys are prevented from raising the issue of source code problems with juries, thus gutting the challenge many defendants hoped to raise.

The battle was one that stretched on in the state for nearly six years, with the first suit filed in 2006 after one suspected drunk driver sought the code used in the device to see if the results in his case were reliable. Many years of litigation followed and the code was eventually released, resulting in thousands of challenges across the state. Defense attorneys across Minnesota sued, claiming that the source code behind the Intoxilyzer 5000EN was out of date and problematic, producing skewed results that couldn’t be trusted. Upwards of 4,000 cases were put on hold as the Supreme Court weighed in on the issue, all of whom will now return to the county courts where they began.

The decision was split and Justice Page led a group of three dissenting judges who argued that by barring source code evidence from trial, defendants would never be given a true opportunity to challenge the credibility of Intoxilyzer results. Page said that in criminal cases all relevant evidence should be admitted to give both sides the opportunity to put on their strongest case. By prohibiting juries from hearing about source code problems, the Supreme Court has hampered the ability of defendants to introduce potentially probative evidence.

All this appears to have been for nothing given that by the end of the summer law enforcement agencies across Minnesota will begin phasing out the Intoxilyzer in favor of a new device, the DataMaster DMT-G. Early reports indicate one problem may simply have been traded for another, as there are indications the DataMaster also has encountered glitches that may affect its reliability. The device takes two approaches to reading a person’s BAC, one similar to the Intoxilyzer, and the other, what’s known as a dry-gas method. There have been problems of reliability with the dry-gas method but officials say any issues with the one approach do not impact the accuracy of the other.

To read the full opinion, click here.

Tags: breath test, Datamaster, DWI, Intoxilyzer 5000, Minnesota, source code
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