Minnesota DWI Defense Blog

Minnesota's breath test machines don't work like they are supposed to. Either the publications put out by the BCA are wrong, and their scientists don’t understand what it means to take an oath to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” or this machine is suffering from some significant malfunctions. And when we say “significant malfunctions,” we’re talking about fatal flaws in some of the necessary, critical scientific safeguards used to ensure the final results are valid, Read More

After the highly-publicized Noor trial, prosecutors, the media, and the public are increasing their scrutiny of the practices and potential biases of Minnesota's own Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). This isn't surprising to us -- we've been criticizing their biases and practices for years. What is surprising is how long it took for everyone else to notice. Read More

Veteran defense attorney Charles Ramsay has seen a lot in his years of defending clients. His years of experience, and track record of success, means that he's often called upon to comment on high-profile legal cases. The Star Tribune reached out to Chuck to find out about his opinion on whether those verdicts would survive an appeal -- here's what he had to say. Read More

No body of law is more fluid than the law on DWI cases. Sharon Osborn of the The Minnesota Society for Criminal Defense, the premiere DWI defense organization in the state, has assembled an all-star line-up presenting cutting edge issues and information for this year’s continuing legal education seminar on June 21, 2019. Read More

Today, the Minnesota Supreme Court issued its decision in Olson v. 1999 Lexus, finding that Minnesota's DWI vehicle forfeiture law was unconstitutional. We've been waiting for this one for a while, and it was worth the wait. Our client gets her vehicle back, and Minnesota's laws just got a little more fair. Here's our reading of the decision. Read More

It's been another long, hard fight for the clients of Ramsay Law Firm, but the finale is in sight -- our years-long war against Minnesota's DWI vehicle forfeiture laws will come to a conclusion this Wednesday, March 13, when the Minnesota Supreme Court issues its long-awaited decision in the Olson case. Read More

Travel across the border into Canada has always been tricky for anyone with a DWI conviction on their record. Over the years the Canadian government has tightened and loosened their restrictions, leaving a great deal of uncertainty for anyone wanting to travel across the border. Now, those restrictions have been tightened again -- and very strictly at that. Read More

Our ten-year blog-aversary (we've been practicing criminal defense far longer than 10 years) came and went without much fanfare, but as this year draws to a close we make note of that anniversary now. In our first blog post we said the purpose of the blog was "to share information and promote excellence." We believe we've done that and continue to do so. Read More

Driving while impaired by alcohol -- or snowmobiling while impaired, or boating while impaired -- can and does lead to a lot of unnecessary death and destruction. But too often, a tragic death (or narrowly avoided injury) can lead the State to the unjustified use of junk science to try and obtain a conviction. It happens . . . but not on our watch. Read More

Winning a DWI case for our clients in Minnesota sometimes requires us to take hard look at "bad" case law, find a way to flip those bad cases on their heads, and hopefully end up creating new defenses for both our current clients and future clients. Here's one example, where we obtained two "not guilty" verdicts for clients who were twice the legal limit. Read More

Since before I graduated high school it's been a Minnesotan tradition (and undoubtedly a nationwide tradition as well) to hit the bars on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Some people are meeting up with friends they haven't seen for a year, others are starting Thanksgiving early with the "fun" relatives, and some are just building the solid hangover they intend to carry through the next day's turkey and stuffing meal. Read More

We've said it before, and we'll say it again -- we only post a fraction of our victories on this website. We're primarily attorneys, not website developers, and we know that no matter how hard we work, we can always find a way to be more creative, more aggressive, and craft new ways to help our clients out of a bad situation. Here are three examples. Read More

This is old news to our clients but new news to the public: Dan Koewler, who has been with Ramsay Law Firm since 2008, is now publicly a partner with Ramsay Law Firm! He has been integral to our growth and our successes since he first started out as an attorney, and we're proud to have him as a partner. Read More

The criminal justice system is always evolving -- new crimes are created, old crimes are struck from the books. Sometimes old crimes develop new consequences -- the consequences for a DWI conviction keep getting more severe, while some drug offenses are being decriminalized. But one trend we're seeing around the country is the slow death of forfeiture laws. Read More

August First: not a particularly good date, historically. In 2007, that was the date that the 35W bridge collapsed. On the other hand, in 1981 it was also the date that MTV first aired the Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star." August 1, 2018, is also a bit of a mixed bag, as a lot of the laws passed in the previous session go into effect. For our purposes, they involve DWIs on boats, snowmobiles, and ATVs. Read More

Minnesota recently started relying on the test results of Ion Mobility Spectrometry (IMS) devices to gain entry into homes via search warrants. IMS devices, referred to as “ion scanners,” are an interesting piece of technology with a very high risk of being misused by aggressive government prosecutors. Here's what you need to know. Read More

Every now that then we get solicited to publish a "guest post" by someone. To date, we've always said "thank you, but no thanks." Today we break that rule -- this one was so well written that we couldn't say no. Here it is, unedited. Read More

Back in 2016, it was cases from Minnesota and North Dakota that, combined into one mega-appeal, led the United States Supreme Court to find DWI test refusal laws were unconstitutional when it came to blood tests. That decision left a big unanswered question: what happens to prior refusal convictions? The North Dakota Supreme Court just said "throw them out." Read More

While everyone was talking about Governor Dayton's recent veto of the entire proposed 2018 tax bill, some other bills were signed into law, and slipped under a lot of people's radars. One bill we noticed was a minor change to Minnesota's DWI laws that will have a big impact in the future. Under the new law, if you are convicted of snowmobiling (or boating, or operating an ATV) while intoxicated, you won't just lose your operator privileges, you will lose your actual driver's license. Read More

The Minnesota Supreme Court just issued their decision in the Hunn case, the first look at Minnesota's constitutional right to DWI pre-test counsel in decades. Here's what they decided. Read More