State of Minnesota v. Brian Russell Lueck

Ottumwa, Iowa, criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with first-degree refusal to submit to blood or breath testing for intoxication.



This case concerns the constitutionality of Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2(2), the test-refusal statute, as applied to a driver who refuses a chemical test where law enforcement obtained a warrant authorizing only one type of test-either blood or urine, but not both. Specifically, we must determine if a prosecution in this circumstance would violate a driver's Fourth Amendment rights, and whether offering a test that is not authorized by the warrant implicates the Fourth Amendment. In order to resolve these constitutional issues, we must first decide an issue of statutory interpretation: whether Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2(2), which incorporates Minn. Stat. § 171.177, subd. 2 (governing testing pursuant to a search warrant), requires a person to refuse both a blood and a urine test to be convicted of test refusal when the warrant authorizes a single type of test.



In 2023, appellant Brian Russell Lueck was involved in a head-on collision when he attempted to pass several vehicles during a snowstorm. Police detained Lueck on suspicion of driving while impaired and obtained a search warrant for Lueck's blood. Police did not obtain a search warrant for Lueck's urine. Lueck refused to submit to both a blood test and a urine test. Lueck was charged with first-degree test refusal. He moved to suppress his refusal to submit to both tests and to dismiss the test refusal charge. Lueck argued that the Fourth Amendment prohibited his test-refusal charge because applicable statutes required him to refuse both a blood and a urine test in order to be charged with test refusal, but police did not have a warrant for a urine test. The district court denied Lueck's motion, and Lueck was convicted of first-degree test refusal. The court of appeals affirmed.

The plain language of Minn. Stat. §§ 169A.20, subd. 2(2), and 171.177, subd. 2, requires that, in cases where the warrant authorizes one type of chemical test- only a blood test or only a urine test-the person may be convicted of test refusal if the person refuses only the test authorized in the warrant. The person does not need to also refuse the alternative test. In this case, where the warrant authorized solely a blood test, the State needed to prove that Lueck refused a blood test in order to convict him of test refusal. We further hold that Lueck's test-refusal conviction did not violate the Fourth Amendment because it was based only on Lueck's refusal of a warranted blood test.



Affirmed