Jensen v. Comm'r Safety
Jensen v. Comm'r Safety
Opinion of the Court
A Pipestone County patrol sergeant obtained a search warrant to draw and test Pauline Jensen's blood after she drove into and injured a child with her car and failed field sobriety tests. The blood test showed that Jensen's alcohol concentration exceeded the statutory limit, and the commissioner of public safety revoked her license under Minnesota Statutes, section 171.177, subdivision 5. Jensen petitioned for judicial review, arguing that her license could not be revoked because the sergeant had not given her the statutory warning that refusing to submit to the test is a crime. The district court upheld the revocation. Because the statute requires police to issue the warning as a prerequisite to a prehearing license revocation, we reverse and remand for the district court to rescind the revocation.
FACTS
One night in December 2017, Pipestone County patrol sergeant Paul Mathews responded to a call reporting that a child had been struck by a car at a gas station in Ruthton. Sergeant Mathews arrived to find first responders treating a teenage boy whose face and body were bleeding from abrasions and who was having difficulty breathing.
A witness told Sergeant Mathews that Pauline Jensen had run over the boy with her car. Jensen had left the scene. Sergeant Mathews found Jensen's car in front *846of the Sunset Bar and Grill and found her inside. He noticed that Jensen had bloodshot and watery eyes, stared blankly into the distance when he spoke to her, smelled of alcoholic beverages, and had unstable balance. Sergeant Mathews arrested Jensen on suspicion of drunk driving, second-degree assault, and criminal vehicular operation, and he took her to the Pipestone County Jail. There he administered field sobriety tests, which she failed, and a preliminary breath test, which registered an alcohol concentration of 0.17. The sergeant obtained a search warrant to draw and test Jensen's blood. He served Jensen with a copy of the warrant and took her to the Pipestone County Medical Center, where a medical technician drew the blood sample. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension analyzed the sample and reported an alcohol concentration over the 0.08 statutory limit. The Commissioner of Public Safety revoked Jensen's license based on the test results.
Jensen petitioned for judicial review, arguing that her driver's license should be reinstated because the sergeant had not warned her that test refusal is a crime, as required by Minnesota Statutes, section 171.177, subdivision 1 (2018), and because the sergeant also never gave her the opportunity to speak with counsel. The district court denied Jensen's petition, reasoning that, because the warrant indicated that there was probable cause to believe that Jensen committed criminal vehicular operation causing bodily harm under Minnesota Statutes, section 609.2113, subdivision 2 (2016), she had no option to refuse the test and failure to give the required warning was therefore irrelevant.
Jensen appeals.
ISSUE
Did the district court err by denying Jensen's petition to reinstate her driver's license based on the deputy's failure to warn her that test refusal is a crime?
ANALYSIS
Jensen argues that the district court erred by failing to reinstate her license because Sergeant Mathews never warned her that refusing to submit to a blood test is a crime. Because the facts are not in dispute, we review the district court's decision de novo. Thole v. Comm'r of Pub. Safety ,
Jensen maintains that the warning required by statute is a prerequisite to a prehearing revocation under section 171.177. The statute requires that, "[a]t the time a blood or urine test is directed pursuant to a search warrant ..., the person must be informed that refusal to submit to a blood or urine test is a crime."
The legislature included the provision to replace the implied-consent statutes covering blood and urine tests after the Minnesota Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court held that testing of a person's blood or urine without a warrant is unconstitutional. See 2017 Minn. Laws ch. 83, art. 2, § 4, at 356 (requiring search warrant for blood and urine tests ); § 10, at 360-66 (creating section 171.177 );
*847State v. Thompson ,
The supreme court's decision in Tyler v. Commissioner of Public Safety is most instructive.
The commissioner argues that the deputy's failure to warn Jensen is irrelevant to revocation because Jensen's blood could be drawn even if she refused to be tested, citing Minnesota Statutes, section 171.177, subdivision 13(b) (2018). That subdivision authorizes an officer to test a person's blood notwithstanding her refusal if the officer has probable cause to believe that she committed criminal vehicular operation causing bodily harm under section 609.2113. The commissioner reads too much into this authorization. It is true that, if Jensen had refused to submit to the test, the sergeant could have drawn and tested her blood anyway. But an officer's authority to obtain a test despite the driver's refusal does not eliminate his duty to give the warning "at the time a blood or urine test is directed."
This is not to say that the commissioner cannot revoke Jensen's license using other available procedures. For example, the commissioner is required to revoke Jensen's license before a conviction if she is formally charged with criminal vehicular operation causing bodily harm. See
Jensen also argues that the district court erroneously upheld the revocation because she was not given an opportunity to speak with counsel before taking the blood test. But the supreme court recently held that a driver has no right to consult an attorney before deciding whether to submit to a blood test authorized by a search warrant. State v. Rosenbush ,
DECISION
An officer must have warned a driver as required in Minnesota Statutes, section 171.177, subdivision 1, before the commissioner of public safety may revoke her license before a hearing under subdivision 5. The sergeant's failure to warn Jensen before drawing and testing her blood prevents the commissioner from revoking the license without a hearing. We reverse and remand for the district court to rescind Jensen's prehearing license revocation.
Reversed and remanded.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Pauline Christin JENSEN v. COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC SAFETY
- Status
- Published