Testing and evidence
Implied consent and refusal in Minnesota
The test requested, legal grounds and applicable statute matter.
Implied-consent laws connect driving and chemical testing under specified legal conditions. The test requested and the officer’s legal grounds matter. The source-checked rules available for Minnesota appear below. A missing suspension figure is not a statement that refusal has no consequences. Check the applicable notice and official provision.
What a refusal does in Minnesota
- Suspension length after a refusal
- Not published yet. We show a figure only once it has been confirmed against the official source and dated.
- Other consequences of refusing
- Refusing the statutory breath test is a crime. Refusal of blood or urine testing is criminal under this provision when the test is required by a search warrant.
- The type of test and legal authority for the demand matter; this is not a statement that every refusal of any requested test is criminal.
- Suspension under the cited rule
- Not published yet. We show a figure only once it has been confirmed against the official source and dated.
Roadside tests and chemical tests are different things
Identify what was requested: a field sobriety exercise, a roadside screening test, or a chemical test of breath, blood or urine. Do not assume the same refusal rule applies to all of them. The relevant statute, any warrant, and the circumstances of the request determine the legal question for a lawyer to review.
The two legal questions
The criminal charge and driving privileges can involve different proceedings. The notice, order and cited rule identify the applicable process.
Driving privileges
The licence case
- Forum
- The agency or court identified by the applicable licence proceeding
- Clock
- Check the applicable notice or order for the deadline and its starting event
- Deadline to request a hearing
- For court review of a Minnesota test-failure or test-refusal license revocation under §169A.52, the petition must be filed within 60 days following receipt of the notice and order. Written administrative review by the commissioner is a separate route available during the revocation period.
- The court-petition clock runs from receipt of the notice and order, not the arrest date. Administrative review does not replace the separate court-petition deadline.
- The commissioner’s 15-day period is for reporting the administrative-review result after receiving a request, not the driver’s filing deadline. The separate 60-day period after filing concerns the judicial hearing.
- Filing the court petition does not itself stay the revocation. If the hearing has not occurred within 60 days after filing, the reviewing court may order a stay of the remaining revocation on terms it considers proper.
- Suspension under the cited rule
- Not published yet. We show a figure only once it has been confirmed against the official source and dated.
- After a refusal
- Not published yet. We show a figure only once it has been confirmed against the official source and dated.
Criminal charge
The criminal case
- Forum
- A criminal court
- Clock
- Check court notices and orders; no case duration is predicted here
- Alcohol-concentration threshold
- 0.08% or more at the time of driving, or as measured within two hours.
- Impairment-based offenses can apply independently of this alcohol-concentration threshold.
- First-offense penalty rule
- Not published yet. We show a figure only once it has been confirmed against the official source and dated.The cited rule may describe a range or a minimum with conditions, not a predicted sentence.