Melysa Kailyn Lau v. Commissioner of Public Safety ( 2014 )

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2012).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A13-1725
Melysa Kailyn Lau, petitioner,
Respondent,
vs.
Commissioner of Public Safety,
Appellant.
Filed August 4, 2014
Reversed
Johnson, Judge
Dakota County District Court
File No. 19AV-CV-13-1431
Wayne A. Jagow, Jagow, Meinerts, Grove & Valentine, Burnsville, Minnesota (for
respondent)
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Kristi Nielsen, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Chutich, Presiding Judge; Johnson, Judge; and
Rodenberg, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
JOHNSON, Judge
The commissioner of public safety revoked Melysa Kailyn Lau’s driver’s license
after she was arrested for driving while impaired and refused to consent to chemical
testing. The district court rescinded the commissioner’s revocation on the ground that the
revocation violated the Fourth Amendment. We conclude that the district court erred in
its legal analysis and, therefore, reverse.
FACTS
In the early-morning hours of April 17, 2013, Officer Justin Drogseth of the Apple
Valley Police Department was dispatched to a fast-food restaurant in the city of Apple
Valley, where a caller had reported that a vehicle swerved and nearly struck other
vehicles. Officer Drogseth investigated and eventually arrested Lau for driving while
impaired (DWI). At the police station, Officer Drogseth followed the procedures of the
implied-consent statute. See Minn. Stat. § 169A.51 (2012). When asked to submit to
chemical testing, Lau refused.
The commissioner of public safety revoked Lau’s driver’s license. In May 2013,
Lau petitioned the district court for judicial review of the revocation. See Minn. Stat.
§ 169A.53, subd. 2 (2012). In July 2013, the district court conducted an implied-consent
hearing. Lau was represented by counsel but was not personally present. At the
beginning of the hearing, Lau’s attorney referred to the United States Supreme Court’s
recent opinion in Missouri v. McNeely, 133 S. Ct. 1552 (2013), and indicated that Lau
was challenging the revocation on the basis of that opinion. The parties stipulated to an
exhibit consisting of the implied-consent peace-officer’s certificate, the implied-consent
advisory, and Officer Drogseth’s police reports. Neither party called any witnesses. The
district court promptly issued an order rescinding the commissioner’s order of revocation
on the ground that, in light of McNeely, the revocation of Lau’s driver’s license pursuant
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to the implied-consent statute is a violation of her Fourth Amendment right to not be
subjected to an unreasonable search. The commissioner appeals.
DECISION
The commissioner argues that the district court erred by rescinding the revocation
of Lau’s driver’s license. The commissioner contends that the district court erred by
concluding that McNeely precludes the revocation of Lau’s driver’s license as a matter of
law. Lau has not filed a responsive brief to address the commissioner’s argument or the
district court’s decision. The case will be determined on the merits in the absence of a
responsive brief. See Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 142.03.
The district court’s decision implicates the constitutionality of a statute, which is a
question of law that is subject to 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).
We begin by noting that the holding in McNeely is relatively narrow. The
Supreme Court held that “the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream does not
constitute an exigency in every case sufficient to justify conducting a blood test without a
warrant.” McNeely, 133 S. Ct. at 1568. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the
evidence in that case arising from a forcible, warrantless blood test (which was not
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performed pursuant to Missouri’s implied-consent statute) was properly suppressed by
the Missouri trial court. Id. at 1557, 1568. The Court did not hold or suggest that the
Missouri implied-consent statute was constitutionally infirm. See id. at 1568. In fact, the
Court spoke approvingly of implied-consent statutes by noting that its opinion does not
“undermine the governmental interest in preventing and prosecuting drunk-driving
offenses” through the use of “legal tools” such as “implied consent laws that require
motorists, as a condition of operating a motor vehicle within the State, to consent to BAC
testing.” Id. at 1566 (plurality opinion).
The Minnesota Supreme Court emphasized this portion of McNeely in State v.
Brooks, 838 N.W.2d 563 (Minn. 2013), cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 1799 (2014), a criminal
case concerning the validity of a person’s consent to chemical testing pursuant to the
implied-consent statute:
Brooks’s argument is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s
discussion of implied consent laws in McNeely. As the
Supreme Court recognized in McNeely, implied consent laws,
which “require motorists, as a condition of operating a motor
vehicle within the State, to consent to [blood alcohol
concentration] testing if they are arrested or otherwise
detained on suspicion of a drunk-driving offense,” are “ legal
tools” states continue to have to enforce their drunk driving
laws. The Court noted that these laws typically require
suspected drunk drivers to take a test for the presence of
alcohol and mandate that a driver’s license will be revoked if
they refuse a test. By using this “legal tool” and revoking a
driver’s license for refusing a test, a state is doing the exact
thing Brooks claims it cannot do -- conditioning the privilege
of driving on agreeing to a warrantless search.
Id. at 572 (alteration in original) (citations omitted) (quoting McNeely, 133 S. Ct. at
1566). Although the statements about implied-consent statutes in McNeely and Brooks
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were not essential to the decision in either case, the statements tend to show that the
revocation of a person’s driver’s license pursuant to Minnesota’s implied-consent law
does not violate the person’s Fourth Amendment rights.
Furthermore, the district court’s decision is inconsistent with a recent opinion of
this court. In Stevens v. Commissioner of Pub. Safety, ___ N.W.2d ___, 2014 WL
3396522 (Minn. App. July 14, 2014), we concluded that the implied-consent statue “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.” Id. at *12. Neither Lau nor the district
court expressly invoked the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine. Nonetheless, Stevens is
relevant because we reasoned, in part, that if the implied-consent statute authorizes a
search of a person’s blood, breath, or urine, such a search would satisfy the
reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at *6-10.
In sum, the district court erred by rescinding the revocation of Lau’s driver’s
license on the ground that, under McNeely, the revocation violated Lau’s Fourth
Amendment right to be free from an unreasonable search. In light of that conclusion, we
need not consider the commissioner’s other arguments for reversal.
Reversed.
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