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

The Minnesota DUI Case Of The Week is State v. Halverson, which stands for the proposition that if the registered owner of a vehicle has a driver's license that is revoked, the police may stop the vehicle even if they do not know who is driving as long as the police do not have information which is inconsistent with the physical  description of the owner.

In Halverson. the Hennepin County Sheriff's Department received a call on June 27, 2014 at 6:45 p.m.  The caller  reported that a blue BMW with license plates 145-GMG was driving extremely slowly and weaving all over the road.  The police responded to the call and eventually found the vehicle, unoccupied,  parked in a parking lot.  The police ran a computer check and found that the vehicle was registered to the defendant and that her license was revoked.

Two hours later, the police saw the vehicle leave the parking lot and they initiated a traffic stop of the automobile.  The Defendant was behind the wheel and she smelled of alcohol.  She subsequently failed some field sobriety tests and was arrested for DWI.

The Defendant filed a motion to suppress all of the evidence alleging that the initial stop was unconstitutional.  The district court ruled that the stop was lawful and on appeal, the Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed the district court, noting:

"State v. Pike is dispositive of the issue in this case. 551 N.W.2d 919 (Minn. 1996). In Pike, an officer observed a vehicle traveling at a low speed, became suspicious, ran a computer check, and discovered that the registered owner of the vehicle had a revoked driver's license. Id. at 921. The officer observed that the driver of the vehicle was a man who appeared to be in the same age category as the registered owner and stopped the vehicle. Id. at 920-21."

"The supreme court held that 'it is not unconstitutional for an officer to make a brief, investigatory, Terry-type stop of a vehicle if the officer knows that the owner of the vehicle has a revoked license so long as the officer remains unaware of any facts which would render unreasonable an assumption that the owner is driving the vehicle.' Id. at 922. The supreme court reasoned that '[w]hen an officer observes a vehicle being driven, it is rational for him or her to infer that the owner of the vehicle is the current operator." Id. However, such an inference would be unreasonable when, for example, the officer knows "that the owner is a 22-year-old male, and the officer observes that the person driving the vehicle is a 50- or 60-year-old woman.' Id."

"Halverson contends that the facts of this case fall within the Pike exception. Halverson argues that "[u]nlike the officer in Pike, Rosati did not have any information about the appearance of either the earlier or later driver to create the reasonable inference that the revoked registered owner was the driver." She further argues that "without this information, any reasonable suspicion that the driver was the primary owner with a revoked license evaporated.'"

"Halverson misconstrues Pike's holding. Pike does not require an officer to observe or otherwise confirm that a driver's physical appearance is consistent with that of the vehicle's registered owner before stopping the vehicle based on the owner's revoked status. To the contrary, '[w]hen an officer observes a vehicle being driven, it is rational for him or her to infer that the owner of the vehicle is the current operator.' Id. Thus, Officer Rosati's failure to observe the driver's appearance before stopping the vehicle does not invalidate the stop."

Moral Of The Story:  If your license is revoked, don't take a bad situation worse by drinking and getting behind the wheel!

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