Rita Ann Stevens v. Commissioner of Public Safety

850 N.W.2d 717, 2014 WL 3396522, 2014 Minn. App. LEXIS 69
CourtCourt of Appeals of Minnesota
DecidedJuly 14, 2014
DocketA13-1855
StatusPublished
Cited by49 cases

This text of 850 N.W.2d 717 (Rita Ann Stevens v. Commissioner of Public Safety) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rita Ann Stevens v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 850 N.W.2d 717, 2014 WL 3396522, 2014 Minn. App. LEXIS 69 (Mich. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinions

OPINION

JOHNSON, Judge.

The commissioner of public safety revoked Rita Ann Stevens’s driver’s license after she was arrested for driving while impaired and refused to submit to chemical testing. On judicial review, the district court sustained the commissioner’s revocation. On appeal, Stevens makes two arguments. First, she argues that the evidence is insufficient to prove that she refused to submit to chemical testing. Second, she argues that the implied-consent statute is unconstitutional because it violates the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine. We affirm.

FACTS

At noon on November 19, 2012, a police officer was dispatched to a possible hit- and-run accident in a parking lot in the city of Minnetonka. The officer identified Stevens as the driver of a Jeep that had hit a parked car multiple times. Because Stevens appeared to be intoxicated, the officer asked her to perform field sobriety tests, which she failed. The officer also asked Stevens to take a preliminary breath test (PBT), but she did not cooperate. The officer arrested Stevens on suspicion of driving while impaired (DWI) and brought her to the police station.

At 12:47 p.m., the officer read Stevens the implied-consent advisory. Stevens indicated that she did not wish to speak with an attorney. At 1:07 p.m., Stevens agreed to take a breath test, but the breath-test [721]*721equipment malfunctioned. The officer then re-read the implied-consent advisory and offered Stevens the option of taking either a blood test or a urine test. Stevens expressed verbal agreement to take a urine test, but Stevens did not provide a urine sample after the female officer who administered the urine test gave her three opportunities to do so. The female officer told the arresting officer that she believed that Stevens was not making a good-faith effort to provide a urine sample. The arresting officer informed Stevens that he was deeming her to have refused to submit to chemical testing. The arresting officer noted Stevens’s refusal on the implied-consent form, which he signed at 2:52 p.m.

The commissioner revoked Stevens’s driver’s license. In December 2012, Stevens petitioned for judicial review of the commissioner’s revocation of her license. See Minn.Stat. § 169A.53, subd. 2 (2012). In June 2013, Stevens amended her petition, and the district court conducted an implied-consent hearing. Stevens was represented by counsel and was present at the hearing. At the outset of the hearing, Stevens’s attorney identified two issues that are relevant to this appeal: whether Stevens refused to submit to chemical testing and “McNeely issues.” The commissioner called one witness, the arresting officer, and offered an exhibit consisting of the implied-consent peace-officer’s certificate and the implied-consent advisory. Stevens did not testify.

In August 2013, the district court issued a 13-page order and memorandum in which it sustained the commissioner’s order of revocation. The district court found that Stevens’s conduct properly was deemed to be a refusal to submit to chemical testing. The district court rejected Stevens’s McNeely-based argument by concluding that the implied-consent statute satisfies the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment and, thus,, is not unconstitutional. Stevens appeals.

ISSUES

I. Is the evidence in the record sufficient to allow the district court to find that Stevens refused to submit to chemical testing?

II. Does Minnesota’s implied-consent statute violate the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine by authorizing the commissioner of public safety to revoke the driver’s license of a person who was arrested for DWI and refused to submit to chemical testing?

ANALYSIS

I.

Stevens first argues that the evidence in the record of the implied-consent hearing is insufficient to allow the district court to find that she refused to submit to chemical testing.

A law-enforcement officer may request that a driver submit to a chemical test of the person’s blood, breath, or urine, if the officer has “probable cause to believe the person was driving, operating, or in physical control of a motor vehicle” while impaired. Minn.Stat. § 169A.51, subd. 1(b) (2012). If a driver refuses to permit a test, “a test must not be given,” Minn.Stat. § 169A.52, subd. 1 (2012), but the commissioner of public safety shall revoke the person’s driver’s license for one year or more, id., subd. 3(a). If a driver expresses verbal agreement to submit to chemical testing but does not provide an adequate sample, his or her conduct may be deemed a refusal to submit to chemical testing. Busch v. State, Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 614 N.W.2d 256, 259-60 (Minn.App.2000); see also State v. Ferrier, 792 N.W.2d 98, 100-02 (Minn.App.2010) (affirming conviction of refusal to submit to chemical testing), re[722]*722view denied (Minn. Mar. 15, 2011). To determine whether a driver’s failure to provide a sample constitutes refusal, a court should look to the driver’s words and actions. Gabriele v. State, Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 393 N.W.2d 23, 25 (Minn.App.1986). The question whether a driver has refused to submit to chemical testing is a question of fact, to which this court applies a clear-error standard of review. Lynch v. State, Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 498 N.W.2d 37, 38-39 (Minn.App.1993).

Stevens does not dispute that she did not provide a urine sample, but she contends that the evidentiary record is lacking because it does not reflect the amount of time that the arresting officer gave her to provide a sample. Stevens asserts that, “to meet its burden of proof, Respondent was obligated to establish the amount of time Appellant was given to produce a urine sample before [the officer] deemed her to have refused.” She cites no authority for the premise that a finding of refusal-by-conduct must include a finding concerning the amount of time allowed for providing a test sample. The district court rejected Stevens’s argument by citing State, Dep’t of Highways v. Lauseng, 289 Minn. 344, 183 N.W.2d 926 (1971), in which the supreme court stated that a driver’s “election of one of the alternative chemical tests ... presupposes the driver’s ability to supply, within a reasonable time, a sample essential to that test,” and further stated that an officer need not “await the driver’s convenience of a different time or place.” Id. at 345, 183 N.W.2d at 927. The district court correctly reasoned that neither the implied-consent statute nor the caselaw requires the commissioner to prove that a driver had any particular amount of time in which to provide a sample.

Even if we construe Stevens’s brief broadly to argue that she did not refuse because she was not given a reasonable amount of time to produce a urine sample, her argument still would fail. The district court found that the arresting officer read Stevens the implied-consent advisory at 12:47 p.m., that she agreed to take a urine test shortly after 1:07 p.m., and that the officer deemed her to have refused testing and completed the implied-consent form at 2:52 p.m. These findings allow an inference that Stevens had a reasonable amount of time to provide a urine sample such that the absence of a urine sample was intentional. Moreover, the record includes the female officer’s observation that Stevens was not making a good-faith effort to provide a urine sample. The district court found that Stevens “was given three opportunities to provide a urine sample, but did not do so.”

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State of Minnesota v. Kent Randall Meyer
Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2025
Aery v. Lewis
D. Minnesota, 2023
Mortenson v. Comm'r of Pub. Safety
918 N.W.2d 573 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2018)
Verhein v. Piper
917 N.W.2d 96 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2018)
Olson v. JT6HF10u6X0079461
910 N.W.2d 72 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2018)
State of Tennessee v. Chad E. Henry
539 S.W.3d 223 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 2017)
Raymond Scott Henry v. Commissioner of Public Safety
Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2016
State of Minnesota v. Wallace Alery Christopher Obey
Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2016
Tyler Lee Johnson v. Commissioner of Public Safety
887 N.W.2d 281 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2016)
Michael John Frank v. Commissioner of Public Safety
Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2016
James David Clark v. Commissioner of Public Safety
Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2016
Roger William Kuehn v. Commissioner of Public Safety
Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2016

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
850 N.W.2d 717, 2014 WL 3396522, 2014 Minn. App. LEXIS 69, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rita-ann-stevens-v-commissioner-of-public-safety-minnctapp-2014.