Court Opinion

ID: 9577879
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:39:04.014839+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:24.453443
License: Public Domain

KELLEY, Justice
(concurring specially)
I concur in the result reached by the majority, and, accordingly, would reverse the court of appeals. In my view, the majority has correctly decided that the legislature could, and did, amend the implied consent statute to forbid even limited consultation with counsel before chemical testing. The 1984 amendment, being later in time and more specific in scope, supplants the meaning of proceeding as found in Minn.Stat. § 481.10 (1984). See Prideaux v. State, Department of Public Safety, 310 Minn. 405, 419, 247 N.W.2d 385, 393 (1976). Therefore, the Commissioner is not precluded from revoking appellant’s drivers license for her refusal to submit to such chemical testing under Minn.Stat. § 169.-123 (1984). In my opinion, that should resolve this case, and no further discussion of the constitutionality of the amendment is necessary for resolution of this appeal.
The court of appeals made clear that in its view any attempt by the legislature to take away the limited right to counsel prior to testing would violate the driver’s sixth amendment right to counsel. Before this court, however, Appellant Nyflot advanced additional arguments that due process and equal protection rights under both the state and federal constitutions are violated if a driver arrested for driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor (DWI) is not afforded the limited “right” to pre-testing advice of counsel. Both the majority opinion and the dissent address these issues on the merits.
This case does not involve a criminal prosecution for driving under the influence of intoxicating liquors. It is a civil action to revoke a driver’s license. See Goldsworthy v. State Department of Public Safety, 268 N.W.2d 46, 49 (Minn.1978); State, Department of Highways v. Beckey, 291 Minn. 483, 486, 192 N.W.2d 441, 444 (1971). The issue before us is not whether, in a criminal DWI prosecution, the state could be precluded on constitutional grounds from introducing evidence of the appellant’s refusal, after denial of pre-testing attorney consultation. This case does not demand that we determine the constitutionality of. Minn.Stat. § 169.121, subd. 2 (1984) should the state attempt to introduce the test refusal in a criminal DWI prosecution.1 In this civil action it seems patent to me that discussion of constitutional precepts is irrelevant. By its very wording, the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution prefaces the rights therein ensured with the words, “In all criminal prosecutions * * *.” U.S. Const, amend. YI. This license revocation proceeding is a civil, not a criminal action. Likewise, Article 1, Section 6 of the Minnesota Constitution, in assuring assistance of counsel, is prefaced, “Rights of accused in criminal prosecutions.” Minn.Const. art. 1, § 6. Moreover, Article 1, Section 7 of the Minnesota Constitution states, in part, “No person shall be held to answer for a criminal offense without due process of law * * Minn.Const. art. 1, § 7. Since the issue raised here is in a civil, not a criminal proceeding, I deem the constitutional discussion in both the majority and dissenting opinion to be premature, and, more importantly, irrelevant to the issue before the court.
By the 1984 amendment, the legislature has clearly evinced an intention that, in drivers’ revocation cases, at least, a driver *519arrested for DWI no longer has a limited right to consult with counsel prior to deciding whether to submit to testing. Since the driver’s revocation action is civil in nature and since the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Sections 6 and 7 of the Minnesota Constitution have to do only with criminal proceedings, I would reverse the court of appeals.

. In a criminal DWI prosecution, Minn.Stat. § 169.121, subd. 2, in appropriate part, provides that “[ejvidence of the refusal to take a test is admissible into evidence in a prosecution under this section * *