Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Minnesota DWI Attorney F. T. Sessoms Blogs on Minnesota DWI: This Week's Featured Minnesota DWI Case

The Minnesota DWI Case Of The Week is McGuire v. Commissioner of Public Safety (Decided May 21, 2018, Minnesota Court of Appeals, Unpublished) which stands for the proposition that the police can stop a vehicle if said vehicle appears to violate the law even if the police are mistaken as to the violation. Yikes!

In McGuire, Rochester Police Officer Craig Sammon saw a truck rapidly accelerate in an area with heavy foot traffic.  Sammon got into his patrol car and followed the truck, and he saw that the truck did not have a rear license plate or a temporary registration permit. Sammon believed that vehicles driven in Minnesota had to have either a rear license plate or a temporary permit displayed in the rear window,1 and he decided to stop the truck. Sammon eventually cited the driver, appellant Cole Gilbert McGuire, for fourth-degree driving while impaired, and McGuire's driver's license was revoked.

McGuire challenged the revocation of his driver's license, arguing that there was no lawful basis for the stop. McGuire testified that he was a Missouri resident who was living in Rochester for a short period of time for a temporary job. He was driving "a full-size Mega Cab Truck 4 x 4" that was rated to pull an 18,000 pound trailer, and, under Missouri law, he was required to have only a front license plate as Minnesota recognizes that if a vehicle is legal in its home state, it may be legally driven in Minnesota even if it is not in conformity with the Minnesota licensing provisions (i.e. every vehicle must have a front and rear license plate).

The district court upheld the license revocation and on Appeal, the Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court, noting:

"A vehicle properly registered or licensed in Missouri will be treated as properly licensed in Minnesota even if the Missouri licensing requirements are different from Minnesota licensing requirements, and, for a properly licensed Missouri vehicle, the requirement to have only a front license plate is an exception from the Minnesota requirement that there be a plate displayed on the front and the rear of the vehicle."

"McGuire argues that, because his vehicle was properly licensed under Missouri law, he was driving a vehicle with a legal license-plate configuration under Minnesota law when he was stopped, and Sammon's mistaken interpretation of Minnesota's license-plate law does not support a particularized and objective basis for suspecting criminal activity, which is required for a valid stop. The supreme court has held that an officer's mistaken belief as to the law cannot provide an objective basis for an investigatory stop. George, 557 N.W.2d at 578-79. In George, an officer stopped a motorcyclist because he believed that the motorcycle had an unlawful headlight configuration, but the officer was mistaken as to the law, and the headlight configuration was lawful. Id. The supreme court concluded that there was no legal basis for the stop because the officer did not have an objective legal basis for suspecting that George was driving his motorcycle in violation of the law. Id. at 579."

"Similarly, in Anderson, an officer believed that a statute required a driver to move far enough away from a stopped emergency vehicle so that there was an entire free "buffer" lane between the driver's car and the emergency vehicle. 683 N.W.2d at 821. Based on this interpretation of the statute, the officer stopped a car that had not moved far enough to the left and eventually arrested the driver for an impaired-driving offense. Id. The supreme court concluded that the officer had incorrectly interpreted the statute and held "that an officer's mistaken interpretation of a statute may not form the particularized and objective basis for suspecting criminal activity necessary to justify a traffic stop." Id. at 823-24."

SO FAR, SO GOOD!

But the Minnesota Court of Appeals goes on to hold:

"There is a significant difference between the circumstances in George and Anderson and the circumstances in this case. In both George and Anderson, the circumstances that the officers observed could not constitute a statutory violation, and, in both cases, the officer stopped the driver because the officer misunderstood the statute and incorrectly believed that he had observed a violation. Unlike George and Anderson, the circumstances that Sammon observed could be a violation of the general statute that requires both a front and a rear license plate, and, because Sammon was following McGuire's vehicle, he had no reason to know that McGuire's vehicle had a front license plate, as required in Missouri."

In other words, even if the vehicle is legal, if the vehicle could be in violation of a Minnesota licensing statute, the officer may legally stop said vehicle.  AAArgh!

Even if the stop is justified, how is the officer entitled to talk to the driver of the vehicle without walking to the front of the vehicle to determine its home state?

Moral Of The Story:  If you are going to drink and drive, make sure your vehicle is "street legal" in every state!


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.

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