State of Minnesota, Respondent, vs. Bonnie Ann Lindquist, Appellant.
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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A12-0599
State of Minnesota,
Respondent,
vs.
Bonnie Ann Lindquist,
Appellant.
Filed March 17, 2014
Affirmed
Worke, Judge
Aitkin County District Court
File No. 01-CR-11-178
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
James P. Ratz, Aitkin County Attorney, Lisa Roggenkamp Rakotz, Assistant County
Attorney, Nicholas B. Wanka, Assistant County Attorney, Aitkin, Minnesota (for
respondent)
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Rachel F. Bond, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Worke, Presiding Judge; Kalitowski, Judge; and
Schellhas, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
WORKE, Judge
On remand from the Minnesota Supreme Court, this court is directed to consider
whether Missouri v. McNeely, 133 S. Ct. 1552 (2013), and State v. Brooks, 838 N.W.2d
563 (Minn. 2013), alter this court’s decision to affirm appellant’s third-degree driving
while intoxicated (DWI) conviction. Because appellant did not raise the issue below or
in her first appeal, we affirm.
FACTS
A jury found appellant Bonnie Ann Lindquist guilty of third-degree DWI under
Minn. Stat. § 169A.03, subd. 3(2) (2010). In Lindquist’s first appeal, this court rejected
Lindquist’s claims that the state failed to prove that her blood-alcohol concentration was
.20 or greater within two hours of her driving and that her post-driving consumption of
alcohol invalidated her test results. State v. Lindquist, No. A12-0599 (Minn. App. April
8, 2013), review granted in part (Minn. July 16, 2013) and remanded (Minn. Nov. 26,
2013).
The supreme court granted Lindquist’s petition for further review as to “the
application of Missouri v. McNeely” but denied the petition as “to all other issues.” The
supreme court also stayed proceedings pending disposition in Brooks. After release of
Brooks, the supreme court remanded the matter for this court to “address Lindquist’s
challenge to her warrantless blood draw in light of Missouri v. McNeely . . . and State v.
Brooks . . . .” This court reinstated the appeal, and the parties submitted supplemental
briefs.
DECISION
The United States and Minnesota Constitutions guarantee individuals the right to
be free from “unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const.
art. I, § 10. This right to be free from unreasonable searches is provided to persons such
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as Lindquist, who are asked to submit to chemical testing. Brooks, 838 N.W.2d at 568.
Typically, a warrant is required for these searches unless there is a constitutional
exception to the warrant requirement. See id. (noting that voluntary consent of the
suspect is an exception to the warrant requirement).
In McNeely, the Supreme Court held that “natural metabolization of alcohol in the
bloodstream does not present a per se exigency that justifies an exception to the Fourth
Amendment’s search warrant requirement for nonconsensual blood testing in all drunkdriving cases,” and that “instead, exigency in this context must be determined case by
case based on the totality of the circumstances . . . .” 133 S. Ct. at 1552.
Following issuance of McNeely, the Minnesota Supreme Court addressed the
constitutional validity of warrantless searches of a suspect’s blood and urine in Brooks.
838 N.W.2d at 567. Addressing only whether Brooks consented to three searches, the
supreme court applied a preponderance-of-evidence standard of proof to conclude that
under the totality of the circumstances, Brooks “voluntarily consented to the searches
. . . .[,]” and that they were therefore not unlawful within the meaning of the Fourth
Amendment. Id. at 565, 568, 572.
Lindquist claims that her warrantless search was unconstitutional because there
was no exigency supporting the search, she did not consent to the search, and the search
was not incident to her lawful arrest. But Lindquist did not challenge the legality of her
search before the district court or in her direct appeal to this court. As an appellate court,
we generally “do not decide issues raised for the first time on appeal, even constitutional
questions of criminal procedure.” State v. Henderson, 706 N.W.2d 758, 759 (Minn.
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2005). “We may address such issues, though, when the interests of justice require their
consideration and doing so would not work an unfair surprise on a party.” Id; see Minn.
R. Crim. P. 28.02, subd. 11 (permitting appellate review of any criminal matter “as the
interests of justice may require”).
Lindquist has not offered a reason why this court should make an exception in this
case. The district court record is not developed as to whether law enforcement could
have obtained a timely warrant, and the existing record suggests that the responding
officers, who worked in a rural area, were quite occupied investigating the accident
scene, attempting to locate Lindquist, who left the accident scene and attempted to evade
police by hiding at her home about 36 miles away, and responding to other calls,
including a missing-child report. We note that such factual circumstances suggest that an
exigency existed in this case that would provide a constitutional basis for the search
under the totality-of-circumstances test set forth in McNeely. 133 S. Ct. at 1552.
As a separate issue, the state also argues that the good-faith exception available
under federal law should apply here, asserting that Lindquist’s Fourth-Amendment
argument is premised solely on federal law.
This characterization of Lindquist’s
argument is inaccurate. Lindquist claims that “[t]he warrantless search of [her] blood
was unconstitutional,” citing to the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution,
but she also cites Brooks extensively, as well as other Minnesota caselaw and rules. See
State v. Eichers, 840 N.W.2d 210, 215-16 (Minn. App. 2013) (stating that a defendant’s
rights to challenge a search under the Minnesota Constitution are coextensive with the
defendant’s rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution).
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Minnesota has not adopted the good-faith exception to the warrant requirement. State v.
Jackson, 742 N.W.2d 163, 180 n.10 (Minn. 2007). In Brooks, Justice Stras filed a
concurring opinion, urging adoption of the good-faith exception, but recognizing that the
exception has not been adopted in Minnesota.
concurring).
838 N.W.2d at 574-75 (Stras, J.,
Given these recent statements, we do not believe that the good-faith
exception can be adopted in the first instance by this court. See Eichers, 840 N.W.2d at
228 (recognizing that court of appeals is an error-correcting court and that authority to
interpret the Fourth Amendment in state cases “lies with the supreme court”).
Based on the reasoning set forth in our first decision, and because the issue of
Lindquist’s warrantless blood draw was not raised in the district court or in Lindquist’s
first appeal, we affirm Lindquist’s conviction.
Affirmed.
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