Minnesota Legal Blog

In Minnesota and throughout the country, there is an ongoing debate about accepting testimony from police officers with histories of misconduct. It was recently revealed that officers in Lake County, Florida, were making racist comments on a Facebook page. A letter from a variety of progressive groups was sent to the Florida state attorney asking that officers that make such comments not be called to testify at trial.

The letter claims that holding these views could make it harder for them to be seen as objective witnesses. Another letter sent to the district attorney in Los Angeles also claims that biased testimony could harm communities and call into question the objectivity of the legal system. Some jurisdictions already have what are referred to as Brady lists, which keep track of officers who have not been truthful in previous cases.

Two Minnesota residents were taken into custody on the morning of July 1 when deputies from the Olmsted County Sheriff's Office and officers from the Southeast Minnesota Violent Crime Enforcement Team executed a search warrant in Stewartville. The search was conducted as part of an ongoing narcotics investigation according to police reports.

According to media accounts, police entered a residence on Heron Drive Northwest at approximately 8:50 a.m. An ensuing search of the property is said to have led to the discovery and seizure of approximately 45 grams of a substance believed to be marijuana, a bag containing an undisclosed quantity of a substance believed to be cocaine, approximately $500 in currency and several items of drug paraphernalia.

Americans' cellphones and other digital devices contain a treasure trove of personal information, including private messages, phone call logs and browsing histories. Most of this data is mundane, but some of it could be incriminating if a person is being investigated for a crime. As a result, law enforcement agencies in Minnesota and across the U.S. are pushing to gain access to certain people's cellphones, making privacy advocates nervous.

So far, courts have ruled that law enforcement officers must obtain a warrant before searching someone's cellphone. However, there is still much debate about whether police can compel people to use their passcode, fingerprint or face to unlock their devices. To make matters even more complicated, the rules differ depending on the state someone lives in, and there are currently multiple court cases making their way through state legal systems.

Many people in Minnesota expect that breath tests will produce an accurate result that shows whether or not a person was driving while intoxicated. However, some of the more popular diet options can actually produce a false result on this type of test, potentially leading to serious penalties for people falsely accused. The keto diet is based on low carbohydrate consumption that pushes the body into ketosis, where the liver breaks down fat for fuel. When this happens, acetone emerges as a byproduct, and some of that is released as isopropyl alcohol.

This does not lead to symptoms of drunk driving, but it can still register on some breathalyzer tests as alcohol content, without distinguishing it from ethanol, the alcohol found in drinks. This is especially true if a person has had one or two drinks but is still below the legal limit; the isopropyl alcohol can lead them to blow a false positive on the breath test. Police breath test machines carried in their cars are more vulnerable to this kind of error. There is little evidence to show that these machines can differentiate between types of alcohol, especially if both are present in some quantity.