Minneapolis DWI Attorney Blogs on Minnesota DWI: This Week's Featured Minnesota DWI Case

The Minnesota DWI Case Of The Week is Tomlinson v. Commissioner of Public Safety (Decided May 16, 2016, Minnesota Court of Appeals, Unpublished) which stands for the proposition that an informant's tip is sufficient to justify the stop of a vehicle even if the informant is an irate boyfriend!

In Tomlinson, the Petitioner's boyfriend, Jay Janzen, called the police in March 2015.  Mr Janzen told the police that Ms. Tomlinson was driving drunk from Vernon Center to their shared home east of Ormsby.  Janzen told the police that the Petitioner was driving from a snowmobile club meeting from which she regularly drives home drunk and that his text-message exchange with Tomlinson informed him that Tomlinson had become lost.

The police went looking for Ms. Tomlinson and soon found her driving on a gravel road.  They stopped the vehicle and subsequently determined that the Petitioner was intoxicated.

The Petitioner challenged the legality of the police stop but the district court denied her challenge.  On appeal, the Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed the district court noting that: "A reasonable suspicion may arise from information supplied by an informant" and "the deputy was aware of the following details: Tomlinson was driving very late, after midnight.  Tomlinson reportedly customarily drives home drunk after she leaves her club meeting.  Tomlinson got lost despite her familiarity with the route; Tomlinson had still not found her way home in the 45 minutes between the time of the call and the time the deputy encountered her on the road; and Tomlinson's boyfriend who lives with Tomlinson believed her communication to him indicated she was drunk. This reasonable suspicion warrants the minimal intrusion of the brief traffic stop". 

"Janzen was not an anonymous informant who provided only a bare assertion of a possible drunk driver.  Nor was he a stranger-informant who failed to provide any basis for his conclusion. Jansen expressed that Tomlinson was intoxicated, and not just possibly intoxicated, and he was convinced of it based on his personal experience with Tomlinson's regularly driving home drunk after her snowmobile club meetings and on her getting lost after leaving the meeting late that night.  This case is sufficiently similar to those in which the informant confidently communicated drunk driving and in which the basis for the report was apparent.  The district court appropriately denied Tomlinson's motion to suppress the evidence that followed the traffic stop."

Moral Of The Story:  With boyfriend's like that, who needs enemies?

If you or a loved one has been arrested for a Minnesota DWI, feel free to contact Minneapolis DWI Lawyer, F. T. Sessoms at (612) 344-1505 for answers to all of your Minnesota DWI questions.