DWI/DUI Attorney in Eagan, Minnesota

What is the Implied Consent Law?

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The Implied Consent Law basically says that when you accept a driver’s license from the State of Minnesota, that you are promising certain things in return. These are – it’s really more an implied promise law. And the things that you are implied to have promised by accepting the license include, first, that you promise you promise you won’t operate with an alcohol concentration above the prohibited level. And second, that if you’re lawfully requested to do so by a police officer, that you will provide a sample of blood, breath, or urine to be analyzed.

So the Implied Consent Law says that if a police officer forms the opinion that you broke one of those promises either by failing the test or by refusing the test, then the police officer, on behalf of the Commissioner of Public Safety, actually revokes your driver’s license on the spot. So if it’s the police officer’s opinion that you broke one of these promises, all he has to do is check a couple of boxes on a form, sign the bottom of the form, and boom, your driver’s license disappears. Not only do they get to take the license from you, but they get to put the fact that they took the license from you on your driving record. So the fact that your license was revoked for a DWI goes on your record before you ever set foot into a courthouse.

Minnesota criminal defense attorney Jeffrey Sheridan discusses the notorious implied consent law in regard to drinking while driving.

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