The Minnesota DWI Case Of The Week is State v. Vredenburg (Decided May 13, 2024, Minnesota Court of Appeals, Unpublished) which stands for the proposition that out-of-court statements are admissible to establish the element of probable cause in a DWI test refusal case.
In Vredenburg, the police encountered the Defendant, apparently impaired, causing a disturbance near her former boyfriend’s home before later seeing her car driving away from the area. Police momentarily lost sight of the car, but soon saw it parked and found Vredenburg walking nearby with the key to the car in her pocket. Police arrested her on suspicion of impaired driving and the state charged her with chemical-test refusal. Vredenburg appealed from her test-refusal conviction, arguing that admitting evidence of statements provided by a bystander violated both the evidentiary rule prohibiting hearsay and Vredenburg’s constitutional right to confront witnesses.
A man reported to Rochester police that his former girlfriend, Mickela Vredenburg, was outside his house yelling and hitting his front door. Officers arrived and found Vredenburg. They noticed that she smelled of an alcoholic beverage, she slurred her speech, and her balance was unstable. An officer offered to drive Vredenburg home, but she declined. She told the officers that she had not driven there and that she had already arranged for a ride. She walked away.
Officers left but were soon dispatched to return. Vredenburg was at the house again, this time reportedly banging her head against the back door. Police did not find her at the house. But they knew she drove a black Ford Edge, and about a block away an officer saw a car of that description speeding past. The officer turned onto a different street, attempting to intercept the Ford. She soon found the Ford parked on the street, empty and situated partially in the grass, near two townhomes.
The officer stopped immediately behind the Ford and beside a bystander who was standing in the street. She got out and asked the bystander, “Did you see where that woman went?” The bystander, who lived nearby, said, “Yeah, she went right straight through there,” pointing between two townhomes. The officer walked in the indicated direction but did not immediately find Vredenburg. She returned to the bystander and questioned her further about what she had seen, asking for a description of the driver.
Meanwhile, other officers found Vredenburg walking in a direction away from where the officer had found her parked car. Vredenburg denied that she had been driving, but the officers were not persuaded. They arrested her on suspicion of drunk driving, and, searching her after the arrest, found the key to the parked Ford.
The Defendant was taken to the Olmsted County detention center where she was asked to submit to chemical testing. Ms.Vredenburg refused testing and was subsequently charged with 3rd Degree DWI Refusal. The Defendant was convicted after a jury trial and on appeal the Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction stating:
"We are unconvinced by Vredenburg’s challenge to the district court’s decision to admit evidence of the bystander’s statements to the officer. Vredenburg is correct that hearsay statements are generally inadmissible at trial. See Minn. R. Evid. 802. She is also correct that, relatedly, testimonial out-of-court statements are generally not admissible unless the defendant has an opportunity to cross-examine the declarant. See U.S. Const, amend. VI; Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 53-54 (2004); State v. Sutter, 959 N.W.2d 760, 764-65 (Minn. 2021). But these prohibitions are inapplicable here. An out- of-court statement repeated at trial is not hearsay unless it is offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Minn. R. Evid. 801(c). And identically, “[t]he [Confrontation] Clause . . . does not bar the use of testimonial statements for purposes other than establishing the truth of the matter asserted.” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 59 n.9; see also Andersen v. State, 830 N.W.2d 1, 9 (Minn. 2013). Vredenburg’s evidentiary and constitutional challenges to the district court’s decision to admit evidence of the bystander’s out-of-court statements therefore fails if the statements were admissible for some other reason."
"We have no difficulty concluding that the challenged statements were offered for some purpose other than the truth of the matter asserted. The supreme court has explained that “[Refusing a chemical test is not a crime . . . unless it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that an officer had ‘probable cause to believe the person was driving, operating, or in physical control of a motor vehicle’ while impaired.” State v. Koppi, 798 N.W.2d 358, 362 (Minn. 2011) (quoting Minn. Stat. § 169A.51, subd. 1(b) (2010)). The bystander’s statements to the officer supported the officer’s suspicion that Vredenburg had just driven the car that the officer found parked. Officers may rely on eyewitness statements to establish reasonable suspicion to detain or probable cause to arrest. See City of Minnetonka v. Shepherd, 420 N.W.2d 887, 888, 891 (Minn. 1988) (holding that police had “sufficient information to reasonably suspect that the driver of the car in question was intoxicated” based on a gas-station attendant’s report to police “that he had observed an intoxicated driver leave the gas station”). The bystander’s statements about Vredenburg exiting the car and walking away from it were therefore admissible to prove a circumstance that establishes probable cause to suspect her of impaired driving. In other words, the bystander’s statement that Vredenburg was driving was not offered as substantive evidence that she was in fact driving, but to support the conclusion of police that they had probable cause to believe that she had been. Because the statements were admissible to provide the officer’s basis for probable cause, which is a purpose other than the truth of the matter asserted, it was not subject to exclusion by either the rule prohibiting hearsay or the Confrontation Clause."
Moral Of The Story: Sometimes a woman scorned feels the fury.
If you or a loved one have been charged with a Minnesota DWI, feel free to contact Minnesota DWI Lawyer, F. T. Sessoms at (612) 344-1505 for answers to all of your Minnesota DWI and DUI questions.
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