Minnesota DWI Defense Blog

"Specialty Courts" are becoming less special and more common across Minnesota And the trend is providing a great deal of long-overdue care for our veterans. Read More

The COVID pandemic continues to impact Minnesota's criminal justice system. Sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes in ways that may surprise you. As usual, it's up to defense attorneys to make sure their clients don't get thrown under the COVID bus. Read More

A "strict liability" crime is one where it doesn't matter what you intended to do -- if the government can prove you did it, you're guilty. It's the type of crime where the strength of the State's evidence is of the utmost importance; we shouldn't be convicting people of strict liability crimes on substandard evidence. Substandard scientific evidence has always been the foe in the scientific war that's raged in Court for decades. Read More

For the first time in over a decade, Minnesota is seeing defense attorneys fight with the State of Minnesota over access to the source code that governs almost every aspect of our fleet of breath test instruments. We're already getting license revocations thrown out of court -- here's how (and why). Read More

There has been a certain amount of “scope creep” across years of efforts to be "tough on crime." At what point are we working too hard to undermine our constitutional right to due process, a fair trial, and being innocent until proven guilty? Read More

Good scientific practices can keep us safe, and insure the guilty are punished according to the law. Junk science, however, is what unjustly punishes the innocent and undermines our faith in the judicial system. Today, we're writing about junk science. Read More

Here in Minnesota, like the rest of the world, everyone is struggling to find the new “normal” in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Bars are opening (and closing), we’re not getting as many haircuts as we used to, and almost everyone is sporting a trendy face mask when they’re out in public. But in the rush to find a new normal, some dangerous steps are being taken. Read More

Today, the Minnesota Supreme Court determined that law enforcement cannot casually search a hotel registry to determine who is currently staying at the hotel. In a "celebrate Minnesota's freedoms" type of scenario, the Court also relied entirely on the protections in the Minnesota Constitution -- not the federal Fourth Amendment. Read More

It's how humans are wired -- we want to be able to answer every question. "Why" is the first question we learn to ask as a small (sometimes annoying) child, and that question carries on throughout our lives. But sometimes, in our rush to come up with answers, we start asking the wrong questions. Read More

The governor and the legislature have demonstrated exemplary leadership during the Covid-19 crisis. Shouldn’t we expect the same from our judicial branch, too? Read More

We've gotten the same question from multiple friends and family members -- "what type of paperwork do I need to travel around during the effective period of Governor Walz' 'Stay At Home' Order?" Our answer is always the same . . . Read More

We ended part 2 of this 4 part blog series with the question: “We’ve been down this road before and we learned from it. Right?” The answer is, Yes! . . . but apparently, it didn't take long for some of us to forget . . . Read More

Part 2 of our 4 part blog series exploring the software (source code) that controls every aspect of Minnesota's breath testing machine -- the DataMaster DMT. Read More

Part 1 of our 4 part blog series exploring the software (source code) that controls every aspect of Minnesota's breath testing machine -- the DataMaster DMT Read More

Minnesota has been using the DataMaster DMT as its alcohol breath testing machine for years. When this machine was originally purchased, we were promised a rock-solid piece of technology backed by a transparent, honest company. But since the original manufacturer sold their company to Intoximeters, Inc., out of Missouri, that promise started to evaporate. And Minnesotans are paying the price. Read More

We broke the news last week about a major recall of blood alcohol testing kits issued by the manufacturer of those kits, Becton Dickinson (BD). The media picked up on the story, prompting the Minnesota BCA to respond. Their response is . . . interesting. Read More

We just received word that the manufacturer for Minnesota's blood alcohol testing kits issued a massive recall for the type of blood testing kit used in Minnesota since August of 2018. Becton, Dickinson and Company (known as "BD") is a major medical supplier across the world . . . and they just sent out a recall notice stating that their blood testing kits may entirely lack the preservatives necessary for these samples to hold up in court. Read More

Earlier this week we posted our blog, “Broken Breath Tests in Minnesota.” A lot of defense attorneys immediately started calling us asking for more details. Just remember -- you asked for it . . . Read More

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