Court Opinion

ID: 9742544
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:15:41.512878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:33.506553
License: Public Domain

Knutson, Chief Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur specially in the majority opinion.
I think it was a mistake to base decision in State v. McCarthy, 259 Minn. 24, 104 N. W. 2d 673, in part on constitutional grounds. Similarly, I think it is a mistake to base this decision on constitutional grounds.
When the legislature amended Minn. St. 169.121 in 1961 it made evidence involved in this case inadmissible as a matter of statutory law. If the rule is based on constitutional grounds, the legislature could not change the rule. When the statute was again amended by L. 1971, c. 893, § 2, it was simply returned to the form it had when McCarthy was decided. Absent a constitutional proscription, there is no reason why the legislature, if it saw fit, could not make this evidence admissible. That is the way I would leave it.
The courts are in complete disharmony on this subject. See, Annotation, 87 A. L. R. 2d 370.