The Minnesota DWI Case Of The Week is State v. Majors (Decided September 11, 2023, Minnesota Court of Appeals, Unpublished) which stands for the proposition that a district court judge is not required to find that something is true just because a state trooper claims that it is true!
In Majors, the defendant was stopped late Saturday night by a state trooper for driving the wrong way on a one-way street in downtown Minneapolis. When the trooper approached the vehicle, Ms. Majors explained that she was on her way to work nearby and turned onto Second Avenue, despite knowing it is a one-way, because her usual path to her parking location was blocked.
The trooper requested her driver’s license and insurance card, which she provided “without delay or difficulty” while reiterating that she was on her way to work. He then asked, one minute into their interaction, “What time was your last drink?” She said it was at midnight and, upon further questioning, acknowledged having two drinks. The trooper directed her to get out of the vehicle for field sobriety tests and a preliminary breath test (PBT), which indicated an alcohol concentration of 0.15. He arrested Majors, and she was charged with two DWI offenses.
Majors moved to suppress evidence of her intoxication obtained after the trooper asked her about drinking, arguing that the inquiry impermissibly expanded the scope of the traffic stop because the trooper lacked reasonable suspicion of impaired driving. In support of the motion, Majors submitted the video recording from the trooper’s body-worn camera. During the suppression hearing, the trooper testified that he asked Majors about alcohol consumption because she turned the wrong way on a one-way street, there was an “overwhelming” odor of alcohol coming from the car, and Majors had bloodshot, watery eyes and “heavily slurred” speech. He explained that slurring meant running words together, slow speech, garbled words, or “drawing words out louder.” He also testified that the timing of the stop was “meaningful” because there tend to be more impaired drivers on the road at night and Saturday night is when “most people” go out drinking.
On cross-examination, the trooper acknowledged that the brief wrong-way driving was Majors’s only concerning driving conduct; he did not observe swerving, speeding, or other traffic violations. When asked to identify where, in the recording, Majors’s speech was heavily slurred, he pointed to several moments before and after he asked about alcohol consumption. He maintained that her speech was heavily slurred “[throughout the entire time” he interacted with her but agreed that he had no difficulty understanding her. He also acknowledged that Majors’s eyes did not look bloodshot in the recording. Regarding the accuracy of the recorded image, he testified that the body-worn camera captures “only a small snippet of what’s actually happening” because it does not capture his full field of vision. But he agreed that the recording captures what was directly in front of him, including Majors’s eyes. He also clarified that the fact Majors was driving shortly after midnight was “[n]ot at all” an indication of impairment.
The district court found that the trooper’s testimony that Majors had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech was not credible because the recording showed neither. And because he was not credible on those points, the district court declined to “rely on” his testimony about smelling an odor of alcohol. The district court also found that the time of day did not create reasonable suspicion of impaired driving, pointing to Majors’s work-related reason for being out at that time and the trooper’s testimony that, while Saturday is a common time for people to drink, he did not consider the timing suspicious or indicative of impairment in this case. After concluding that there is no credible evidence to support expansion of the traffic stop, the district court granted the motion to suppress and dismissed the charges.
The State appealed the dismissal but the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court noting:
"In assessing credibility, a district court may weigh conflicting testimony and determine which witness to believe. State v. Kramer, 668 N.W.2d 32, 38 (Minn. App. 2003), rev. denied (Minn. Nov. 18, 2003). It may accept part and reject part of a witness’s testimony. Id. And it may determine the weight of any corroborating evidence. See State v. Harris, 405 N.W.2d 224, 229 (Minn. 1987). When there is video evidence of a traffic stop, the district court may make factual findings from its independent review of the video, including discrediting contrary testimony from the officer who conducted the stop. State v. Shellito, 594 N.W.2d 182, 186 (Minn. App. 1999)."
"The district court found that the trooper was not credible in testifying that Majors’s eyes were bloodshot because the body-worn recording “did not support” the testimony. Review of the recording confirms that, during the one-minute interaction before the trooper asked about alcohol, Majors exhibited no redness in her eyes. Indeed, the trooper acknowledged in his testimony that her eyes do not appear red in the video. This evidence supports the district court’s credibility determination."
"The state ... faults the district court for not explaining its determination that the trooper was not credible, such as findings addressing his experience or his demeanor while testifying. But it identifies no authority requiring a district court to do so. To the contrary, a finding that testimony conflicts with video evidence is sufficient justification for discrediting the testimony. Shellito, 594 N.W.2d at 186. Because the district court made such a finding here, and the body-worn recording supports it, the state has not demonstrated that the district court clearly erred by discrediting the trooper’s testimony regarding bloodshot eyes."
"The district court also discredited the trooper’s testimony that Majors had “heavily slurred” speech because the recording “did not support” the testimony. The court found that Majors spoke rapidly but “did not slur her speech.” Again, review of the recording supports the district court’s findings: During their one minute of contact before the trooper inquired about alcohol consumption, Majors spoke quickly but intelligibly and did not slur her words."
"The state argues that the district court should have credited the trooper’s testimony because he described Majors’s speech as heavily slurred and discerned slurred speech at several points in the recording. But the district court was not bound to accept the trooper’s description of the recording. See id. The state’s contention that the court should have deferred to the trooper’s training and experience is similarly unpersuasive. The trooper explained that his training and experience led him to look for a person running words together, using slow or garbled speech, or drawing words out louder. The recording reveals none of these indicators, just normal, if rapid, speech. And while courts defer to law- enforcement officers’ training and experience because it enables them to make inferences and deductions that may “elude an untrained person,” Mesenburg v. Comm ’r of Pub. Safety, 969 N.W.2d 642, 648 (Minn. App. 2021) (quotation omitted), rev. denied (Minn. Mar. 15, 2022), officers are not uniquely expert in assessing whether a person’s speech suggests impairment, see State v. Ards, 816 N.W.2d 679, 683 (Minn. App. 2012) (holding that an officer’s opinion as to impairment is not “expert” testimony). On this record, we discern no clear error by the district court in finding the trooper’s testimony that Majors had heavily slurred speech not credible."
"The district court acknowledged that, unlike with the other physical indicia the trooper described, the recording does not provide an independent basis for assessing whether Majors smelled of alcohol. But the court reasoned that, “given the [trooper’s] lack of credibility” in testifying that Majors had bloodshot eyes and “heavily slurred” speech, it would “not rely on any alleged odor of alcohol in making its ruling.”
"The state contends that this implicit credibility finding is clearly erroneous because the record contains evidence that corroborates his testimony about smelling alcohol—Majors’s admission that she drank alcohol recently, her poor performance on field sobriety tests, his comment at a later point in the recording that she smelled strongly of alcohol, and her 0.15 PBT result. This argument is unavailing. The district court was clearly aware of this evidence and its potential corroborative value, as its comments during the suppression hearing reflect. But the court was not required to accept the trooper’s testimony as to odor of alcohol, even with corroborating evidence, particularly in light of its supported finding that the trooper’s testimony regarding other physical indicia of impairment was not credible. See Harris, 405 N.W.2d at 229. Moreover, the district court disagreed that Majors’s performance on field sobriety tests provided corroboration, finding “little support” in the recording for a finding “that [she] was impaired.”
"Given the district court’s supported credibility determinations regarding other indicia of impairment, and its express consideration of potential corroborating evidence, the state has not demonstrated that the district court clearly erred by implicitly finding that the trooper was also not credible in testifying that Majors emitted an odor of alcohol."
Moral Of The Story: The Court is not bound to accept the testimony of someone "lying like a cop in court".
If you or a loved one have been charged with a Minnesota DWI, feel free to contact Minnesota DWI Attorney, F. T. Sessoms at (612) 344-1505 for answers to all of your Minnesota DWI and DUI questions.
