Court Opinion

ID: 9658778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:13:13.899291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:59.393804
License: Public Domain

MEYER, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I agree with the majority’s interpretation of Minn.Stat. § 169.123, subd. 3(a) (1998). I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the statute is constitutional; to condition an individual’s right to access *233evidence for his or her defense on the state’s access to that same evidence deprives an individual of his or her due process right to gather possible exculpatory-evidence.
A person arrested in Minnesota for driving while intoxicated is brought into a system of laws designed to effectively detect, deter, and punish his or her conduct. Our laws exact serious civil, criminal, and financial penalties for someone suspected of driving while impaired. Minnesota statutes permit a police officer who suspects an individual is driving while impaired to “require the driver to provide a sample of the driver’s breath for a preliminary screening test.” Minn.Stat. § 169A.41, subd. 1 (2002).1 If the driver refuses the preliminary screening test, his or her refusal is admissible evidence in a criminal prosecution for drunk driving. Minn.Stat. § 169A.45, subd. 3 (2002).2 In addition, if a driver refuses either a blood, breath, or urine test after the preliminary screening test, he or she faces two potential sanctions: (1) the state revokes his or her driver’s license for a year under the state’s civil administrative powers, and (2) the refusal is a crime with its own punishment. Minn.Stat. § 169A.52, subd. 3 (2000); Minn.Stat. § 169A.20, subds. 2, 3 (2002).
Minnesota and federal case law uphold the state’s legitimate interest in encouraging drivers to submit to chemical testing. The United States Supreme Court has upheld a state’s right to act on that interest by requiring a suspected intoxicated driver to submit to a blood-alcohol test, and legislating that an individual’s refusal to consent to such a test can be introduced as evidence of intoxication. See South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553, 566, 103 S.Ct. 916, 74 L.Ed.2d 748 (1983); Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 770-72, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966). We have held that a criminal'prosecution for refusal to submit to chemical testing does not violate Fifth Amendment rights of people suspected of drunk driving. See McDonnell v. Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 473 N.W.2d 848, 855 (Minn.1991).
The majority’s holding today, however, oversteps legitimate boundaries of what the state can do to compel a suspect to give a potentially inculpatory chemical sample. Larivee was punished for his refusal to take the state’s test. He was charged with test refusal and his driver’s license was revoked. The majority penalizes him further by disallowing him access to his own test, a penalty not permitted under the constitutional right to due process and a fair trial.
The majority relies on Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984), for guidance in deciding when a denial of access to evidence amounts to a due process violation. Brady and Trombetta are inapposite because in both cases the Court addressed the rights of a defendant to access evidence in the government’s possession. Here, we are confronted with a very different question, to-wit, whether thé statute requiring Lari-vee to submit to the state’s blood-alcohol-level test before he could avail himself of an independent test violates due process of law.
*234At issue in Trombetta was whether California was obligated to preserve potentially exculpatory evidence it had gathered. Trombetta complained of the failure of California police to preserve breath samples that police had gathered for independent testing. Before reaching the issue, however, the Court set out three categories of “access-to-evidence” cases. One category involved the government’s obligation to turn over exculpatory evidence in its possession to the accused. Another category, applicable to the facts of Trom-betta, involved the government’s duty to preserve evidence in its possession for defendants. In addressing the government’s duty to preserve evidence in such a case, the Court set out a two-part test of constitutional materiality. Preservation is required where the evidence at issue is obviously exculpatory and the defendant has no reasonable alternative method of obtaining comparable evidence. Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 489, 104 S.Ct. 2528. The Court later added that the defendant must also show bad faith by the police to prevail. Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 58, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988). Because Trombetta was concerned with the “preservation” of evidence and not the attainment of evanescent evidence in the first instance, it does not provide the appropriate analysis for this case.
It was the third category of cases set out in Trombetta — described by the Court as “less clear” and left undecided — that encompasses our case today. This eate-gory involved “the extent to which the Due Process Clause imposes on the government the additional responsibility of guaranteeing criminal defendants access to exculpatory evidence beyond the government’s possession.” Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 486, 104 S.Ct. 2528 (emphasis added). The United States Supreme Court has not yet returned to address this category.
Under the Due Process Clause, the government must give defendants “a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense.” Id. at 485, 104 S.Ct. 2528. The Due Process Clause protects defendants against the government “hampering] a criminal defendant’s preparation for trial.” Id. at 486, 104 S.Ct. 2528.3 At a minimum, the statute at issue here hampers a driver’s ability to present a complete defense by depriving him or her of the opportunity to obtain independent blood-alcohol testing unless he or she first submits to such testing by the state. The state has the right to criminally penalize the refusal to submit to the state’s required test as a condition of being licensed. See McDonnell, 473 N.W.2d at 855. However, it is a wholly different matter to hold that the state can prevent the ability of a defendant to obtain potentially exculpatory — and importantly evanescent — evidence to defend against a criminal charge involving driving under the influence. The majority ignores this distinction and, in doing so, undermines the defendant’s right to present a meaningful defense.4 This sequence is im*235portant because of the evanescent nature of the evidence.
Courts around the nation concur that individuals who are accused of driving while intoxicated have a right to independent blood tests. See, e.g., In re Koehne, 54 Cal.2d 757, 8 Cal.Rptr. 435, 356 P.2d 179, 180-81 (1960); Commonwealth v. Alano, 388 Mass. 871, 448 N.E.2d 1122, 1126 (1983); State v. Snipes, 478 S.W.2d 299, 303 (Mo.1972); State v. Dake, 247 Neb. 579, 529 N.W.2d 46, 49 (1995); and Schroeder v. State, 105 Nev. 179, 772 P.2d 1278, 1281 (1989). Very few courts, however, have addressed the precise question of whether it is constitutional to legislate that the government is first in line to take blood-alcohol samples from the suspect. Of the three state supreme courts that have addressed this same question, two found that accused drivers had a constitutional right to an independent test, regardless of their compliance with police-administered exams. See State v. Swanson, 222 Mont. 357, 722 P.2d 1155, 1157 (1986); State v. Lewis, 266 S.C. 45, 221 S.E.2d 524, 526 (1976). But see State v. Zoss, 360 N.W.2d 523, 525 (S.D.1985). Intermediate courts in three other states have reached the same conclusion. See Smith v. Cada, 114 Ariz. 510, 562 P.2d 390, 393 (Ct.App.1977); State v. Dressler, 433 N.W.2d 549, 550 (N.D.Ct.App.1988); and State v. Choate, 667 S.W.2d 111, 112 (Tenn.Crim.App.1983).
For these reasons, I would join Montana and South Carolina and hold that Minn.Stat. § 169.123, subd. 3(a) violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by conditioning an individual’s right to access potentially exculpatory evidence on the state’s.prior access to that evidence. The state may not unreasonably interfere with an individual’s timely, reasonable attempts to secure an independent examination. Therefore, I would reverse the court of appeals and answer the district court’s certified question, as construed by the court of appeals, in the affirmative.

. Although the sections were numbered differently in 1998, I will cite the current statutes. The consequences for refusing to lake a breath or chemical test have been the same since 1998.

. The admission of the refusal highlights the fact that a prosecution for driving while impaired is not stymied by a suspect’s refusal to submit to testing. Officers simply testify to an accused’s guilt based on the same factors that gave them probable cause to require the test.

. The Court has noted that the due process rights of defendants could be violated by a state’s prejudicial and intentional delay in bringing an indictment or deporting key witnesses, because both diminish the defendant's ability to mount a defense. United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858, 868-70, 102 S.Ct. 3440, 73 L.Ed.2d 1193 (1982); United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307, 324, 92 S.Ct. 455, 30 L.Ed.2d 468 (1971).

. The potential ramifications of the majority's holding may not be readily apparent from the facts before us today, but can be foreshadowed by a reference to a recent case from this court. In Krosch, blood-alcohol testing was not done by the state, nor requested by the defendant, even though police suspected intoxication, and impairment may have provided a defense to an element of first-degree murder. See State v. Krosch, 642 N.W.2d *235713, 716-17 (Minn.2002). We must ask whether in that case we would have conditioned the defendant’s request for access to evanescent evidence upon submission to a test by the state, when the request is made solely for the purpose of defending himself against murder charges in the first degree. I suggest we would not.