Posted on 02/16/2011 8:22:34 AM PST by big black dog
The Supreme Court of Minnesota on Thursday upheld the drunk driving conviction of a man caught asleep behind the wheel of a vehicle that would not start. At 11:30pm on June 11, 2007, police found Daryl Fleck sleeping in his own legally parked car in his apartment complex parking lot. The vehicle's engine was cold to the touch, indicating it had not been driven recently. The keys were in the center console, not the ignition. Fleck admitted to having consumed around a dozen beers that night. Officers at the scene arrested him, and his blood alcohol level was found to be .18. A few weeks after Fleck's vehicle was impounded, a police officer tested the vehicle using the keys found in the car's center console.
"Although the key turned in the ignition, the vehicle would not start," Justice Alan C. Page explained in the unanimous decision.
Laws covering driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) have evolved over the years to cover the situations where police find a parked, but recently driven, vehicle with a drunk behind the wheel. In the 1992 case Minnesota v. Starfield, the court found a drunk passenger sitting in a vehicle stuck in a ditch guilty of DUI, but not because it could prove she really was the one who drove and caused the accident. Instead, the court ruled that "towing assistance [was] likely available" creating the theoretical possibility that the immobile vehicle could "easily" be made mobile. These defendants have been charged under an expanded definition that suggests having "dominion and control" with the mere potential to drive is a crime. Intending to sleep off a night of drinking treated as the same crime as attempting to drive home under this legal theory which does not take motive into account.
As Fleck was an unsympathetic figure with multiple DUI convictions in his past, prosecutors had no problem convincing a jury to convict. The court took up Fleck's case to expand the precedent to cover the case of mere presence in an undriven -- and perhaps undrivable -- car into the definition of drunk driving. The court relied on Fleck's drunken claim that his car was operable to set aside the physical evidence to the contrary.
"Although the facts of this case are not those of the typical physical control case in which a jury can infer that the defendant was in physical control because he drove the vehicle to where it came to rest, a jury could reasonably find that Fleck, having been found intoxicated, alone, and sleeping behind the wheel of his own vehicle with the keys in the vehicle's console, was in a position to exercise dominion or control over the vehicle and that he could, without too much difficulty, make the vehicle a source of danger," Page wrote. "Based on the totality of the circumstances, the facts in the record, and the legitimate inferences drawn from them, we hold that a jury could reasonably conclude that Fleck was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of being in physical control of a vehicle under the influence of alcohol and with an alcohol concentration of .08 or more."
Fleck's three prior convictions elevated his sentence to a felony for which the trial judge imposed four years in prison. A copy of the decision is available in a 90k PDF file at the source link below.
I knew someone in Maryland that got a DUI ticket while sitting in the parking lot. She had no intention of driving and was waiting for the designated driver to return to the car.
It’s this kind of silliness that causes people to really hate the cops, the clueless state legislators and the rest of the nanny state.
This is stupid
Once, In order to prevent a drunk friend of mine from driving home, I pulled the ignition wire off his distributor cap.
He slept in his car and THANKED ME for it later
The loonies are out of the asylum and have assumed control!
I agree...the defendant was convicted for crimes he might have done or possibly could have done. In absence of an “attempted DUI” charge, I don’t see how you can convict the man for doing something he clearly did not do.
Sure! We should be able to get drunk driving convictions without driving! Heck, we should be able to get drunk driving convictions without drinking or driving!
The presence of a car within 100 miles of the suspect, is presumptive proof of commission of the crime of drunk driving. The presence of alcohol within 1200 miles of the suspect is good as corroborative proof, but it is entirely optional.
America. Good ole' Crunchy Police Statin'! Yummerilicious!!!
Call a tow truck.
Ride in the cab home.
Let your insurance or AAA pay for it.
The gov’t makes big money off of DUI convictions.
According to this ruling, you would be convicted as a Accomplice to a Felony Act of DUI.
Pretty soon you’ll be DUI in your own home, simply because your car is in the garage and you could have driven it...................
What country is this again?
Then I supposed I could be charged with attempted murder because I have a loaded gun, haven’t fired a shot at anyone, but am in control and could do so if I intended.
And trial lawyers, and probation officers, and ...........
Had a neighbor who drank too much, and realizing he was too drunk to drive, pulled over and slept in the car.
The cop found him parked along the side of the road, saw the keys in the ignition (engine off) and him sleeping in the backseat. He got the DWI charge.
Next time, he and everyone he knows - now know that you are better off taking your chances and driving all the way home = drunk off your butt; rather than take the responsible decision and pull over and sleep it off.
Nice work, Officer Fife.
Sometimes, you just want to slap these people. This judge needs a swift knee to the groin a couple dozen times. If the car won’t start, and the keys are in the console - that car is nothing more than shelter from the weather.
In analogy to THIS ruling, your firearm could be completely demilled and unusable, and you are guilty of Attempted Murder.
I was in a simlar situation once. I had to b*tch slap a buddy of mine and grab his keys. Hated to do it but it was for his own good. Besides, he was too sh*tfaced to remember.
IMO, It sounds like the cops were going on the premise that he intended to drive while he was blitzed. It’s good that DUI’s aren’t tolerated like they were in the old days, but how much of a good thing is too much?
sorry, but three DUI priors and sitting in the car with the keys while drunk, he should be in jail for at least a couple years.
three DUI’s is at least one too many. cops are saving the guy from himself to say nothing of some poor innocent sob that the guy kills.
The guy had 3 priors. He’s drunk in his car with the keys. I probably would have voted GUILTY. It’s not clear from the info that the car was inoperable. They said a few weeks later in impound it wouldn’t start. Didnt say why. Was it just a dead battery?
I have a gun in my house.
My wife is not dead, but I have “control and dominion” over an implement that COULD have been used to render her so.
Where will it end?
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