We told the government exactly what evidence to preserve:
All biological samples.
The demand appeared in the Petition for Judicial Review that began our client’s Minnesota driver’s license case. The Commissioner of Public Safety and the Attorney General’s Implied Consent Division received that Petition while the urine sample still existed.
More than thirteen months later, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension destroyed the sample anyway.
A Ramsey County District Court judge has now granted our motion for sanctions, excluded the urine test, and rescinded our client’s license revocation.
“An express demand for preservation of evidence cannot simply be ignored.”
Read the Court’s redacted amended order.
The ruling addresses an important issue in Minnesota DWI litigation: the difference between what the government must automatically disclose in discovery and its separate obligation to preserve evidence once it has been specifically told that the evidence is material to pending litigation.
We Told the Government to Preserve the Biological Sample
This was not a request made after the evidence disappeared.
It was not an informal email sent to some unrelated government employee.
On April 18, 2025, we filed our client’s Petition for Judicial Review. That Petition initiated the civil case challenging the revocation of his driving privileges.
The Petition challenged the reliability and accuracy of the chemical testing, questioned whether accepted scientific procedures had been followed, and expressly directed the government to:
“preserve and maintain all evidence”
including:
“all biological samples.”
That same day, the Petition was served on the Commissioner of Public Safety and the Attorney General’s Implied Consent Division.
The government therefore had written notice, in the pleading that began the case, that the biological sample underlying the BCA’s test had to be preserved.
The BCA Destroyed the Sample Anyway
The timeline was undisputed:
- April 5, 2025: The Minnesota State Patrol obtained the urine sample.
- April 14, 2025: The BCA issued its laboratory report.
- April 18, 2025: We filed and served the Petition demanding preservation of all biological samples.
- June 2, 2026: The BCA destroyed the urine sample.
The BCA destroyed the sample more than thirteen months after receiving the preservation demand.
Once the sample was gone, our client could no longer send it to another laboratory. He could not reproduce the BCA’s analysis. He could not determine whether independent testing would confirm or contradict the government’s reported result.
The court expressly recognized that the destruction eliminated our client’s ability to independently reproduce or verify the BCA’s findings.
That is the fundamental problem.
A laboratory report is not the physical evidence. It is one laboratory’s conclusion about the physical evidence.
When the original sample still exists, another qualified scientist can examine it. Once the government destroys the sample, the government’s report remains, but the defense loses the opportunity to independently test the evidence that produced it.
“An Express Demand for Preservation of Evidence Cannot Simply Be Ignored”
The Commissioner argued that the urine sample fell outside the limited materials that must automatically be disclosed in a Minnesota implied consent proceeding.
But discovery and preservation are not the same thing.
Minnesota Statute § 169A.53 identifies the materials the Commissioner must automatically disclose before a license revocation hearing. The statute does not say that the government may destroy specifically identified evidence after receiving an express demand to preserve it.
The judge rejected that position:
“An express demand for preservation of evidence cannot simply be ignored.”
The court held that once a party identifies evidence relevant to pending or reasonably anticipated litigation and requests its preservation, the responding party must take reasonable steps to prevent its destruction. At a minimum, the responding party must timely communicate any objection or inability to comply.
The court explained that allowing a party to ignore the demand and later claim the evidence was destroyed in the ordinary course of business would undermine the purpose of preservation and deprive the requesting party of a meaningful opportunity to protect evidence central to the case.
The court returned to that distinction near the end of its decision:
“The statute’s limited disclosure requirement should not be construed as authorization for Respondent to destroy evidence that is the subject of an express preservation demand.”
The Commissioner Could Not Distance Himself From the BCA
The Commissioner also argued that he should not be sanctioned for the BCA’s destruction of evidence.
The court rejected that argument too.
The BCA is not an unrelated laboratory. Minnesota Statute § 299C.01 establishes the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as a division of the Department of Public Safety.
When we served the preservation demand, the BCA had possession and control of the urine sample.
The court found that the sample remained within the Commissioner’s possession and control and distinguished cases involving genuine uncertainty about who held the missing evidence. The Commissioner could not avoid a spoliation sanction by claiming he did not know where the sample was.
Bad Faith Was Not Required
The Commissioner relied heavily on State v. Hawkinson, a criminal case involving destroyed biological evidence.
In a criminal constitutional claim involving evidence that is merely potentially useful, a defendant ordinarily must show that the government acted in bad faith.
But this case involved a different claim and a different legal framework.
A Minnesota proceeding challenging a driver’s license revocation is civil. We sought relief under Minnesota’s civil law governing spoliation of evidence, meaning the destruction or loss of evidence relevant to litigation.
The court found that the BCA destroyed the sample through inadvertence or neglect, not bad faith.
That did not eliminate the prejudice.
The court held that the stricter criminal standard did not control this civil proceeding and concluded:
“Petitioner has successfully met his burden on this narrow subset of facts, and a spoliation sanction of exclusion is appropriate.”
Our client did not need to prove that someone intentionally destroyed favorable evidence. The government had actual notice of the preservation demand, controlled the sample, destroyed it, and permanently eliminated the opportunity for independent testing.
Destroying the Sample Eliminated Independent Testing
The BCA’s laboratory report contained the government’s reported urine alcohol result.
But the BCA’s result was still a scientific measurement produced by a particular laboratory, using particular procedures, instruments, calibrations, calculations, and assumptions.
Independent testing could have answered a direct question:
Would another laboratory testing the same urine sample obtain a consistent result?
No one can now answer that question. The government destroyed the sample.
It would be fundamentally unfair to require our client to prove what an independent test would have shown when the government’s own destruction made that proof impossible.
The court’s remedy addressed that imbalance. The government could not keep the benefit of its laboratory report after eliminating the evidence necessary to independently evaluate it.
The Same Logic Applies to Blood Samples
Although this case involved a urine sample, the court’s reasoning was not limited to urine testing. Our preservation demand covered “all biological samples,” and the court’s analysis turned on broader facts: the government had actual notice of the preservation demand, controlled material biological evidence, destroyed that evidence, and thereby eliminated the defense’s ability to conduct independent testing.
Under that rationale, a blood sample destroyed under the same circumstances would be subject to the same spoliation analysis. If the government destroyed a blood sample after receiving an express demand to preserve it, and that destruction prevented meaningful independent testing, the blood test result would likewise be subject to exclusion as a remedy for the resulting prejudice. The court based its reasoning on the loss of independently testable biological evidence, not on anything unique to urine.
That does not mean every destroyed blood sample automatically requires exclusion. The court emphasized that the result depends on the particular facts, including actual notice, possession and control, materiality, and prejudice. But where those same facts exist, the reasoning applies with equal force to blood evidence.
We Have Been Raising This Problem for Years
This issue did not begin with this case.
In 2010, Ramsay Law Firm published an article after learning that the government had destroyed urine samples we intended to have independently analyzed. At the time, we argued that the State should preserve critical biological evidence and give drivers a meaningful opportunity to inspect and test it. Read our 2010 article on the destruction of DWI evidence.
That earlier article addressed different cases and different legal theories, but the underlying problem was the same: when the government destroys the physical evidence, it leaves the defense with the government’s report but no meaningful way to independently verify the government’s scientific conclusion.
The new Ramsey County order applies Minnesota civil spoliation law to a particularly strong set of facts. The preservation demand was explicit. It identified biological samples. It was served in the pending litigation. The BCA retained the sample for more than a year after the demand. It then destroyed the sample without notifying the court of an objection or an inability to preserve it.
The Court Drew a Narrow Line
This is a Ramsey County District Court decision, not an appellate opinion. It does not bind every judge in Minnesota.
The judge also carefully limited the ruling to this case’s specific facts.
The court did not hold that the government must preserve every potentially relevant item forever. Instead, it focused on these facts:
- The Commissioner had actual notice of an express preservation demand.
- The demand specifically identified biological evidence.
- The evidence was material to issues already being litigated.
- The BCA had possession and control of the evidence.
- The BCA destroyed it anyway.
- The destruction prevented independent testing.
The court emphasized that its ruling applied only to circumstances in which the government received actual notice that it needed to preserve specific, material evidence and failed to do so.
That narrow holding makes the order more persuasive, not less. The case does not rest on a broad complaint that the government should have anticipated every possible defense. It rests on a written preservation demand identifying the exact category of evidence the defense needed preserved.
The Result: Urine Test Excluded, License Revocation Rescinded
The court granted our sanctions motion.
The BCA urine test was excluded.
The Court rescinded the revocation of our client’s driving privileges.
The lesson is straightforward:
Preservation demands matter.
When the government receives an express demand to preserve material evidence in pending litigation, it cannot simply ignore the demand, destroy the evidence, and expect to keep the benefit of the test produced from that evidence.
A BCA Laboratory Report Is Not the End of the Inquiry
A BCA report may look official and conclusive. It is still evidence that must be examined.
In a Minnesota DWI case involving blood, breath, or urine testing, the defense may need to investigate:
- How the sample was collected and stored
- Whether the chain of custody was complete
- Whether the laboratory followed its procedures
- Whether the instrument was properly calibrated and maintained
- Whether the underlying data supports the reported result
- Whether the result can be independently reproduced
- Whether the original evidence was properly preserved
Ramsay Law Firm has spent decades investigating the law and science behind Minnesota DWI testing.
Review examples of our DWI case results.
For more information about defending DWI charges and license revocations in Ramsey County, visit our Ramsey County DWI defense page.
Facing a Minnesota DWI Involving Blood, Urine, or Breath Testing?
If you are facing a Minnesota DWI charge or driver’s license revocation involving blood, breath, urine, or other forensic evidence, contact Ramsay Law Firm at 651-604-0000 or request a consultation.
