The Minnesota DWI Case Of The Week is State v. Roth (Decided August 15, 2022, Minnesota Court of Appeals, Unpublished), which stands for the proposition that you can challenge a prior revocation if you can prove you were crazy during the entire 60-day challenge window.
In Roth, the Defendant was charged with Second Degree DWI as he had two prior offenses within the past ten years. One of the prior offenses used to make the current offense a 2nd degree was a 2018 implied consent license revocation. The Defendant had been found not guilty of the related 2018 DWI charge because at the time of the DWI offense, Ruth’s mental illness had made him unable to understand the nature or wrongfulness of his behavior.
Ruth filed a motion to dismiss for lack of probable cause, arguing that the state’s use of the 2018 license revocation to enhance the severity of the charges violated his constitutional rights. Ruth contended that the district court’s ruling in the corresponding 2018 criminal case that he was not guilty by reason of mental illness created an inference that he was also incompetent during the 60-day judicial-review period for the revocation of his driver’s license. He further argued that, because he was unable to challenge the 2018 revocation due to his incompetence, the state’s use of the revocation to enhance the 2020 DWI charges violated his right to due process.
The District Court denied the motion to dismiss and on appeal the Minnesota Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court noting:
"Under Minnesota law, the revocation of an individual’s driver’s license following an impaired-driving arrest may be used to enhance the severity of subsequent DWI charges. State v. Wiltgen, 737 N.W.2d 561, 569 (Minn. 2007)
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"Designed to protect public safety, DWI-related driver’s-license revocations are civil proceedings in which the 60-day period for requesting judicial review is strictly construed, even when a delay in pursuing judicial review is not the driver’s fault. McShane v. Comm ’r of Pub. Safety, 377 N.W.2d 479, 481-82 (Minn. App. 1985)."
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"Ruth acknowledges that he did not timely seek judicial review of his 2018 driver’s- license revocation. But, relying on the district court’s 2018 determination that he was not guilty of the corresponding criminal DWI charges by virtue of his mental illness, he contends that he was also mentally incompetent during the 60-day window for requesting judicial review and therefore could not timely initiate that process. In further support of his assertion that he was not competent to timely seek judicial review, he asks us to take judicial notice of the evaluator’s competency report in the 2018 criminal case, which concluded that he could not appreciate the wrongfulness of driving while impaired at the time of the offense. According to Ruth, because there was no judicial review of the 2018 revocation, and because he was incapable of requesting judicial review, the revocation could not be used."
"Ruth contends that his case is unique, making his collateral attack on the validity of the 2018 revocation proper, because his incompetence precluded him from utilizing the available judicial review. In support of this argument, he cites to Anderson, where a driver attempted to challenge prior revocations by initiating an untimely civil implied-consent hearing—the judicial-review hearing afforded under the statutory scheme. 878 N.W.2d at 928. Like Ruth, the driver in Anderson argued that he had been incapable of timely requesting judicial review because, due to his mental incompetence, he had not understood the notice he received. Id. at 929. We rejected the driver’s use of an implied-consent hearing as a vehicle for challenging the revocations because the district court lost jurisdiction over such a proceeding when the driver failed to timely request review. Id. at 930. But we stated that the driver could potentially challenge the revocations in a criminal proceeding if the state sought to use the revocations to enhance criminal charges. Id."
"Ruth points out that we essentially addressed his circumstances in Anderson, when we stated, “The circumstances in this case may well constitute one of the ‘unique’ cases in which a criminal defendant may collaterally attack a revocation to prevent it from serving as an enhancement.” Id. He observes that he, like the driver in Anderson, was unable to timely seek judicial review due to mental incompetence. But Ruth notes that, unlike the driver in Anderson, he used the proper vehicle for challenging his revocations—a collateral attack in the context of his criminal case."
"Ruth’s attempt to collaterally challenge the 2018 revocation is flawed, however. We reject his collateral attack on the revocation for two reasons."
"First, in Anderson, we “expressed] no opinion as to the outcome of [the] analysis.” Id. at 930. Thus, Anderson does not hold that a driver’s incompetence during the judicial- review period precludes the use of the revocation to enhance a subsequent offense."
"Second, and even more importantly, the record does not support Ruth’s claim that he was not competent to seek judicial review of the 2018 revocation. His claim relies entirely on the district court’s judicial notice of an order in his 2018 criminal case finding him not guilty of DWI by reason of mental illness. The record contains no evidence of Ruth’s competence to participate in judicial proceedings during the 60-day window for seeking judicial review. And the record does not even include the evaluation that the district court relied on in 2018 to find Ruth not guilty by reason of mental illness. Based on the record here, we cannot infer—as Ruth asks us to do—that he was not competent to seek judicial review in 2018. Yet, this factual assertion provides the entire foundation of Ruth’s legal argument. Because the record does not support Ruth’s claim that he was not competent to seek judicial review, his legal argument fails."
"We cannot conclude that Ruth’s mental condition prevented him from requesting judicial review of his 2018 driver’s-license revocation. Because Ruth waived judicial review by failing to timely request it, the use of the revocation to enhance his current DWI offense did not violate his constitutional right to procedural due process."
Moral Of The Story: That's one crazy driver!
If you or a loved one have been charged with a Minnesota DWI, feel free to contact Minneapolis DWI Attorney, F. T. Sessoms at (612) 344-1505 for answers to all of your Minnesota DWI and DUI questions.
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