850 N.W.2d 717 | Minn. Ct. App. | 2014
Lead Opinion
OPINION
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
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
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.”
In sum, the evidence is sufficient to support the district court’s finding that Stevens refused to submit to chemical testing. Thus, the district court’s finding of refusal is not clearly erroneous.
II.
Stevens also argues that the district court erred by rejecting her argument that Minnesota’s implied-consent statute is unconstitutional. The constitutionality of a statute is a question of law, to which this court applies a de novo standard of review. State v. Ness, 834 N.W.2d 177, 181 (Minn.2013). We presume that Minnesota statutes are constitutional and will declare a statute unconstitutional “with extreme caution and only when absolutely necessary.” Id. at 182 (quotation omitted). The party challenging a statute on constitutional grounds must meet “the very heavy burden of demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt that the statute is unconstitutional.” State v. Johnson, 813 N.W.2d 1, 11 (Minn.2012) (quotation omitted).
Stevens contends that Minnesota’s implied-consent statute violates the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine because it 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 unconstitutional-conditions doctrine is a creature of federal law that may, in some situations, be invoked to protect or vindicate a constitutional right. See Frost v. Railroad Comm’n of Cal, 271 U.S. 583, 592-93, 46 S.Ct. 605, 607, 70 L.Ed. 1101 (1926). The Minnesota Supreme Court has explained the doctrine in this way:
[A]s a general rule, the state, having power to deny a privilege altogether, may grant it upon such conditions as it sees fit to impose. But the power of the state in that respect is not unlimited, and one of the limitations is that it may not impose conditions which require the relinquishment of constitutional rights. If the state may compel the surrender of one constitutional right as a condition of its favor, it may, in like manner, compel a surrender of all. It is inconceivable that guaranties embedded in the Constitution of the United States may thus be manipulated out of existence.
State v. Netland, 762 N.W.2d 202, 211 (Minn.2009) (alteration in original) (quoting Frost, 271 U.S. at 593-94, 46 S.Ct at 607), abrogated in part by Missouri v. McNeely, — U.S. -, 133 S.Ct. 1552, 185 L.Ed.2d 696 (2013), as recognized in Brooks, 838 N.W.2d at 567. In essence, “the unconstitutional conditions doctrine reflects a limit on the state’s ability to coerce waiver of a constitutional right where the state may not impose on that right directly.” Id. The supreme court in Netland also stated, “ ‘Although it has a
We note that Stevens is asserting an unconstitutional-conditions argument in the context of a civil action in which she seeks to rescind the temporary revocation of her driver’s license. Because this is a civil action, we need not decide whether Stevens has been subjected to an unconstitutional condition on her Fourth Amendment rights by the criminal consequences of a refusal to submit to chemical testing.
Stevens’s unconstitutional-conditions argument fails for four reasons, as described below.
A.
First, Stevens’s unconstitutional-conditions argument fails because there is no authority for the proposition that the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine applies to a constitutional challenge based on the Fourth Amendment. The Minnesota Supreme Court has not so held. In Netland, the supreme court specifically refrained from holding that the doctrine applies to a Fourth Amendment challenge to the implied-consent statute. Id. The supreme court noted that the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine has been applied “in the context of privileges conditioned on infringement of individual liberty rights, such as First Amendment freedoms of speech, religious expression, and association” but that “[t]he application of this doctrine to other constitutional rights is less clear.” Id. at 211. The supreme court resolved Netland’s unconstitutional-conditions argument by reasoning that, if the doctrine were to apply, Netland would not be able to satisfy a required element of the doctrine, that the statute authorizes an unconstitutional search. See id. at 212-14. The supreme court did not address the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine four years later in Brooks, which focused on the case-specific, fact-bound question whether, in light of the totality of the circumstances, the appellant’s consent was valid or was coerced. See 838 N.W.2d at 567-73. Because the supreme court did not hold in either Netland or Brooks that the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine applies to a Fourth Amendment challenge to Minnesota’s implied-consent statute, Stevens cannot establish that the doctrine applies in this case.
In addition, the United States Supreme Court has not held that the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine may be invoked to protect Fourth Amendment rights. As our supreme court has observed, the Unit
B.
Second, even if the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine were to apply, we nonetheless would conclude that Stevens’s unconstitutional-conditions argument fails because she would not be able to satisfy the requirement that the implied-consent statute “authorizes an unconstitutional search.” See Netland, 762 N.W.2d at 212.
Stevens cannot show that the implied-consent statute authorizes a search that violates the Fourth Amendment because the implied-consent statute, by itself, does not authorize any search given the facts of this case. Contrary to its common title, the implied-consent statute does not authorize a warrantless search of a person’s blood, breath, or urine by implying, as a matter of law, that every licensed driver has consented to such a search. The supreme court made this clear in Brooks by stating, “we do not hold that Brooks consented because Minnesota law provides that anybody who drives in Minnesota ‘consents ... to a chemical test.’ ” 838 N.W.2d at 572 (alteration in original) (quoting Minn.Stat. § 169A.51, subd. 1(a)). In most situations,
C.
Third, even if (a) the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine were to apply, and (b) the implied-consent statute were to authorize a search, we nonetheless would conclude that Stevens would not be able to establish that the implied-consent statute authorizes a search that violates the Fourth Amendment. See Netland, 762 N.W.2d at 212.
The commissioner contends that Stevens’s constitutional challenge fails because the implied-consent statute is a reasonable means of promoting the state’s interest in enforcing its DWI laws. The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons ... against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const, amend. IV. As a general rule, a search of a person requires a search warrant. See Terry v. Ohio, .392 U.S. 1, 20, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). But a warrantless search of a person is valid under the Fourth Amendment if the search is justified by a recognized exception to the warrant requirement, such as consent or exigent circumstances. See McNeely, 133 S.Ct. at 1558.
Notwithstanding the above-stated general rule, the United States Supreme Court sometimes analyzes the validity of a warrantless search simply by asking whether the search was reasonable. “As the text of the Fourth Amendment indicates, the ultimate measure of the constitutionality of a governmental search is ‘reasonableness.’ ” Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 652, 115 S.Ct. 2386, 2390, 132 L.Ed.2d 564 (1995). A general reasonableness analysis may be appropriate “when special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable-cause requirement impracticable.” Id. at 653, 115 S.Ct. at 2391 (quotation omitted). Whether a particular search satisfies the reasonableness standard “is judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.” Id. at 652-53, 115 S.Ct. at 2390 (quotation omitted).
The Supreme Court opinion in Skinner v. Railway Labor Execs.’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602, 109 S.Ct. 1402, 103 L.Ed.2d 639 (1989), is helpful in resolving this issue. In that case, the Court considered federal regulations that required railroads to administer suspicionless drug and alcohol tests to any railroad employee who was involved in a major accident. Id. at 609-10, 109 S.Ct. at 1409. The regulations provided, among other things, that employees who refused to provide blood or urine samples may be disqualified from work for nine months. Id. at 610-11, 109 S.Ct. at 1409. The question before the Court was whether the warrantless, suspi-eionless searches conducted pursuant to the regulations violated the railroad employees’ Fourth Amendment rights. Id. at 606, 109 S.Ct. at 1407. The Court invoked the special-needs exception to the warrant requirement and balanced the intrusion on the employees’ privacy interests against the government’s need to conduct the searches. Id. at 620, 109 S.Ct. at 1415. The Court reasoned that “the expectations of privacy of covered employees are diminished by reason of their participation in an industry that is regulated pervasively,” id. at 627,109 S.Ct. at 1418, and that the tests do not constitute “an unduly extensive imposition on an individual’s privacy and bodily integrity,” id. at 625, 109 S.Ct. at 1417 (quotation omitted). The Court also reasoned that the government’s need to conduct the searches was great because it has
For similar reasons, the implied-consent statute also satisfies the general reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment. The first factor we must consider is the “promotion of legitimate governmental interests.” See Vernonia Sch. Dist., 515 U.S. at 653, 115 S.Ct. at 2390 (quotation omitted). These interests are especially strong in this case. For decades, the harms caused by drunken driving have been a matter of serious concern. See, e.g., State v. Hanson, 543 N.W.2d 84, 89-90 (Minn.1996); State v. Willis, 332 N.W.2d 180, 186 (Minn.1983) (Peterson, J., concurring specially); see also South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553, 558, 103 S.Ct. 916, 920, 74 L.Ed.2d 748 (1983) (noting that “carnage caused by drunk drivers is well documented”); Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 U.S. 432, 439, 77 S.Ct. 408, 412, 1 L.Ed.2d 448 (1957) (noting “increasing slaughter on our highways”); State v. Henning, 666 N.W.2d 379, 386-91 (Minn.2003) (Meyer, J., dissenting) (reasoning that suspicionless stop of driver with special license plates, conducted pursuant to statute, was reasonable). In 2000, the legislature enacted a new chapter of the Minnesota Statutes to address drunken driving in a more extensive manner. See 2000 Minn. Laws. ch. 478, art. I, § 7 (codified at Minn.Stat. §§ 169A.01-.76 (2000)); compare Minn.Stat. §§ 169A.01-.76 (2000) with Minn.Stat. § 169.121-.123 (1998). Yet a significant number of persons still are killed or injured each year in Minnesota in motor-vehicle accidents involving alcohol.
More specifically, there is no dispute that the state has a strong interest in ensuring the safety of its roads and high
We also must consider a second factor, the “intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests.” Vernonia Sch. Dist., 515 U.S. at 653, 115 S.Ct. at 2390 (quotation omitted). The Skinner Court reasoned that the intrusion on a person’s privacy interests is diminished if the person is participating in a highly regulated activity. 489 U.S. at 625-27, 109 S.Ct. at 1417-19. The Skinner Court concluded that, in such a context, chemical testing does not constitute “an undue infringement on the justifiable expectations of privacy” of the individual. 489 U.S. at 633, 109 S.Ct. at 1422. Similarly, a licensed driver in Minnesota is subject to a multitude of traffic regulations that govern his or her driving. See generally Minn. Stat. §§ 169.011-169A.78 (2012). In addition, a licensed driver in Minnesota is presumed to be familiar with the laws governing the operation of a motor vehicle. See Seitzer v. Halverson, 231 Minn. 230, 236, 42 N.W.2d 635, 639 (1950). Accordingly, a licensed driver is presumed to be aware that he or she may be asked to submit to chemical testing upon being arrested for DWI. See Minn.Stat. § 169A.51, subd. 1(a). Furthermore, a licensed driver is likely to be aware that law-enforcement officers regularly patrol the state’s roads and highways and will stop a vehicle to investigate suspected violations of laws. See, e.g., State v. Anderson, 683 N.W.2d 818, 823 (Minn.2004). Thus, a licensed driver in Minnesota has a diminished expectation of privacy with respect to enforcement of the state’s DWI laws.
Furthermore, the implied-consent statute contains numerous prerequisites that must be satisfied before an officer may request that a driver submit to chemical testing. As the district court observed:
The process is only invoked after there is probable cause to arrest a person for DWI, a legislatively prescribed notice is read to the arrested person, and the person has the right to consult with an attorney. The police may only use ap*729 proved testing procedures and methods, and the person has a right to get their own second test. In addition, if the police request a breath sample, and a person declines, the police must offer an alternative test method, such as a urine test. If a person declines to cooperate (i.e. refuses), the police do not take a BAC sample without a warrant. The entire Implied Consent process is typically recorded to help insure that the police officer follows the specific statutory requirements and to permit later judicial review. Deviation from these clearly and narrowly prescribed requirements results in suppression of the test results and reinstatement of suspended driving privileges.
See Minn.Stat. §§ 169A.51-.52. In these ways, Minnesota’s implied-consent statute contains even more safeguards than the suspicionless-search procedures that were upheld in Skinner and, thus, is at least as reasonable, if not more reasonable, for Fourth Amendment purposes than the procedures in Skinner.
In two criminal cases, the Supreme Court has commented favorably on the efficacy of implied-consent statutes that impose civil consequences. In Neville, the Supreme Court rejected a Fifth Amendment challenge to an implied-consent statute that allowed a person’s test refusal to be admitted into evidence in a subsequent criminal prosecution. 459 U.S. at 562, 103 S.Ct. at 921; see also McDonnell v. State, Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 473 N.W.2d 848, 853-56 (Minn.1991) (applying Neville). The Neville Court commented on the provision of the state law that required the revocation of a driver’s license, stating, “Such a penalty for refusing to take a blood-alcohol test is unquestionably legitimate, assuming appropriate procedural protections.” 459 U.S. at 560, 103 S.Ct. at 920. Most recently, in McNeely, the Court noted with apparent approval that “all 50 States have adopted implied consent laws that require motorists, as a condition of operating a motor vehicle within the State, to consent to BAC testing if they are arrested or otherwise detained on suspicion of a drunk-driving offense.” 133 S.Ct. at 1566 (plurality opinion). The Court stated that these laws “impose significant consequences when a motorist withdraws consent” in that “typically the motorist’s driver’s license is immediately suspended or revoked.” Id.; see also Brooks, 838 N.W.2d at 572 (quoting McNeely, 133 S.Ct. at 1566). These comments support the conclusion that Minnesota’s implied-consent statute is reasonable.
The reasonableness of Minnesota’s implied-consent statute is bolstered by Supreme Court caselaw in which individuals have faced civil consequences for a refusal to waive their Fourth Amendment rights. One pertinent case is Wyman v. James, 400 U.S. 309, 91 S.Ct. 381, 27 L.Ed.2d 408 (1971), which concerned a person’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches of her home. Id. at 316, 91 S.Ct. at 385. The state of New York sought to discontinue a woman’s welfare benefits after she refused to permit a home visit, which was a statutory condition of receiving benefits. Id. at 313-14, 91 S.Ct. at 384. The Court considered whether the statutory condition violated the woman’s Fourth Amendment rights. Id. at 316, 91 S.Ct. at 385. The Court reasoned that, if the home visits were a search for Fourth Amendment purposes, the statutory condition would be reasonable and, therefore, not unconstitutional. Id. at 318, 91 S.Ct. at 386. The Court stated that the woman “has the ‘right’ to refuse the home visit, but a consequence in the form of cessation of aid ... flows from that refusal. The choice is entirely hers, and nothing of constitutional magnitude is
The reasonableness of Minnesota’s implied-consent statute is buttressed by Supreme Court caselaw concerning laws that authorize searches as a condition of a license issued pursuant to a regulatory scheme. In New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987), the Court held that a state statute authorizing warrantless inspections of automobile junkyards satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness test. See id. at 718, 107 S.Ct. at 2652. In Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S. 594, 101 S.Ct. 2534, 69 L.Ed.2d 262 (1981), the Court held that a federal statute authorizing warrantless inspections of underground mines satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness test. Id. at 606,101 S.Ct. at 2542. And in United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311, 92 S.Ct. 1593, 32 L.Ed.2d 87 (1972), the Court held that a federal statute authorizing war-rantless inspections of firearms dealers satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness test. Id. at 317, 92 S.Ct. at 1597. This body of caselaw suggests that the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine does not invalidate state laws that authorize warrantless searches as a reasonable means of exercising control over a highly regulated activity.
Therefore, we conclude that the state’s strong interest in ensuring the safety of its roads and highways outweighs a driver’s diminished privacy interests in avoiding a search following an arrest for DWI. Thus, if we assume that the implied-consent statute authorizes a search of a driver’s blood, breath, or urine, such a search would not violate the Fourth Amendment.
D.
Fourth, even if (a) the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine were to apply; (b) the implied-consent statute were to authorize a search; and (c) a search of a driver’s blood, breath, or urine pursuant to the implied-consent statute would violate the Fourth Amendment, we nonetheless would conclude that Stevens’s unconstitutional-conditions argument fails because she would not be able to show that the implied-consent statute is sufficiently coercive.
As the supreme court noted in Netland, the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine is concerned with coercion and its tendency to deter individuals from assert
The supreme court stated in Brooks that “the choice to submit or refuse to take a chemical test ‘will not be an easy or pleasant one for a suspect to make.’ ” 838 N.W.2d at 571 (quoting Neville, 459 U.S. at 564, 103 S.Ct. at 922). Nonetheless, the supreme court stated that “a driver’s decision to agree to take a test is not coerced simply because Minnesota has attached the penalty of making it a crime to refuse the test.” Id. at 570, 103 S.Ct. 916. The supreme court considered the potential coercion of the criminal penalties for test refusal, not the potential coercion of the civil consequences of test refusal. See id. But the supreme court’s reasoning extends to civil consequences because the supreme court stated that the implied-consent statute does “the exact thing Brooks claims it cannot do — condition[ ] the privilege of driving on agreeing to a warrantless search.” Id. at 572, 103 S.Ct. 916. Furthermore, there is no apparent reason for this court to presume that the civil consequences of test refusal are more coercive than the criminal penalties for test refusal. Thus, the supreme court’s opinion in Brooks forecloses Stevens from establishing that the implied-consent statute coerces a driver into surrendering a Fourth Amendment right in a manner that is offensive to the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine.
For all of the reasons stated above, we conclude that Minnesota’s implied-consent statute does not violate the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine by authorizing the commissioner of public safety to revoke the driver’s license of a person who has been arrested for DWI and has refused to submit to chemical testing.
DECISION
The evidence in the record supports the district court’s finding that Stevens refused to submit to chemical testing. Stevens has not established that the implied-consent statute violates the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine.
Affirmed.
. In addition, there are criminal penalties for refusing to submit to chemical testing. In 1989, the legislature made test refusal a gross misdemeanor for certain repeat offenders. See 1989 Minn. Laws ch. 290, art. 10, § 3, at 1659 (codified at Minn.Stat. § 169.121, subd. 3 (1990)). In 1992, the legislature made test refusal a misdemeanor for all drivers. See 1992 Minn. Laws ch. 570, art. 1, § 7, at 1948 (codified at Minn.Stat. § 169.121, subd. 3 (1992)). In 2003, the legislature made test refusal a gross misdemeanor for all drivers. See 2003 Minn. Laws. 1st Spec. Sess. ch. 2, art. 9, § 5, at 1446 (codified at Minn.Stat. § 169A.26 (Supp.2003)).
. We acknowledge that this court applied the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine to a Fourth Amendment challenge in Netland. See State v. Netland, 742 N.W.2d 207, 213-14 (Minn.App.2007), aff'd in part, rev'd in part, 762 N.W.2d 202 (Minn.2009). But on further review, the supreme court refrained from adopting the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine. Netland, 762 N.W.2d at 212. We of course must look to the supreme court’s interpretation and application of the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine as the governing law on the issue.
. The implied-consent statute authorizes a search of a driver's blood, breath, or urine without the driver’s express consent in two circumstances. The first is when there is probable cause to believe that the driver has committed the offenses of criminal vehicular homicide or criminal vehicular operation. Minn.Stat. § 169A.52, subd. 1; see also Minn. Stat. § 609.21, subd. 1 (2012); Brooks, 838 N.W.2d at 569 n. 3. In that situation, an officer may require a test "despite the person's refusal.” Minn.Stat. § 169A.52, subd. 1; see also Brooks, 838 N.W.2d at 569 n. 3. The second circumstance is when the driver is unconscious or otherwise incapable of consenting to chemical testing or refusing to consent. Minn.Stat. § 169A.51, subd. 6.
. In 2012, 131 persons were killed, and 2,644 were injured, in motor-vehicle accidents involving alcohol in Minnesota. Office of Traffic Safety, Minn. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, Minnesota Impaired Driving Facts 37, 39 (2013), available at https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ots/ educational-materials/Documents/IMPAIRED-DRIVING-FACTS-2012 .pdf. Furthermore, 26% of traffic fatalities in Minnesota in 2012 involved drivers with an alcohol concentration of more than .08. Id. at 37. Moreover, in 2012, 28,418 persons were arrested for DWI in Minnesota. Id. at 4.
. The Court has, however, invalidated some warrantless searches authorized by regulatory schemes. See Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 98 S.Ct. 1816, 56 L.Ed.2d 305 (1978) (routine OSHA inspection of premises of electrical- and plumbing-installation business); Camara v. Municipal Court of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967) (request to search portion of apartment building); See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541, 87 S.Ct. 1737, 18 L.Ed.2d 943 (1967) (request to conduct routine inspection of commercial warehouse). In those cases, however, the searches were conducted pursuant to government regulatory schemes that were not sufficiently pervasive, considering, among other things, the history of that type of regulation. See Donovan, 452 U.S. at 605-06, 101 S.Ct. at 2541-42. In Minnesota, driving a motor vehicle has required a license since 1939. See 1939 Minn. Laws ch. 401, § 2, at 782 (codified at Mason’s Minn.Stat. § 2720-143 (Supp.1940)). At that time, a person was ineligible to possess a driver’s license if he or she was "an habitual drunkard." See 1939 Minn. Laws ch. 401, § 4(4), at 783 (codified at Mason’s Minn.Stat. § 2720-144(a)(4) (Supp.1940)).
Concurrence Opinion
(concurring specially).
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that sufficient evidence supports the district court’s finding that Stevens refused to submit to chemical testing and that her unconstitutional-conditions argument fails. I write separately concerning the unconstitutional-conditions discussion because I would base my rejection of that doctrine solely on the rationale stated in Part D of
