The Ramsay Law Firm just scored a major victory that will affect thousands of DWI cases and driver’s license revocations each year.
Earlier today the Minnesota Court of Appeals issued a published opinion in Janssen v. Commisioner of Public Safety and reversed a district court order in an Implied Consent case. The district court judge had ruled that whether a test was accurately evaluated at or above the aggravated threshold level of twice the legal limit (0.16), was not a proper issue in an Implied Consent hearing. In reversing, the Court of Appeals read the statutorily provided defenses together and found that because one can challenge the evaluation of a test result at the 0.08 level, one may also challenge the evaluation of a test result at the aggravated (0.16) level.
As you may suspect, this case and its holding are related to measurement uncertainty and scientifically based challenges to the validity of breath tests in Minnesota.
Check back later this week as we will post further analysis and consider some of the implications of this decision.
