Breaking News: Minnesota Supreme Court to Determine Constitutionality of Minnesota's Test Refusal Law

Posted On May 20, 2014 by Daniel Koewler
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The Minnesota Supreme Court just accepted review of the State v. Bernard case. This means that we will soon have final word from our State's highest Court on whether it is constitutional to make it a crime for an individual to politely refuse to submit to a warrantless search.

Warrantless searches are presumptively illegal, a fact that the Bernard decision addressed by crafting a new "inevitable warrant doctrine."

The appeal process for the Bernard case started when the government appealed a judge's ruling that the test refusal law is unconstitutional, meaning the timelines for this appeal are shorter than in a more typical case. We can optimistically expect the Supreme Court to issue its decision by the end of this year.