Stevens v. Commissioner of Public Safety, Minn.Ct.App., 7/14/2014. The McNeeley wars continue in this license revocation appeal. The Commissioner revoked Ms. Stevens’s driver’s license after she was arrested for driving while impaired and refusing to submit to chemical testing. She argued that the implied consent statute is unconstitutional because it violates the “unconstitutional-conditions” doctrine. By a variety of contortions the court of appeals says, no, it doesn’t.
Here’s how Ms. Stevens described this doctrine:
[I]t imposes on a driver a choice between, on the one hand, relinquishing the Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unreasonable search and, on the other hand, relinquishing a license to drive a motor vehicle.
The court of appeals said that Ms. Stevens’s argument fails for four reasons: First, there is no authority, at least in Minnesota, that the doctrine applies to a constitutional challenge based on the Fourth Amendment. Second, even if the doctrine applied, Ms. Stevens can’t show that the implied consent statute authorizes an unconstitutional search. Rather, if she says no to the test, the statute forbids it. Third, if the doctrine applies, and if the implied consent statute authorized a search, the implied consent statute does not authorize a search that violates the Fourth Amendment. Such a search would be reasonable to promote the state’s interest in promoting its DWI laws. Fourth – still there? – if, well you know, the argument fails because Ms. Stevens can’t show that the implied consent statute is sufficiently coercive.
“Source Code Two”?
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