Volume 45, Issue 3

“Don’t be in a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn’t do what you do, or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.” To put a dent in our mass incarceration moral failure, we should follow the road to prison abolition. This…

“I raise up my voice—not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard … We cannot succeed when half of us are held back.”—Malala Yousafzai The application of criminal sexual conduct statutes to juveniles and young adults often sparks frustration in the criminal defense bar. While the litany of…

There has been a dramatic increase over the last decade in the number of federal wiretaps authorized under Title III—the federal wiretap statute. This trend is highlighted against a backdrop of increasing unease with covert government surveillance among privacy advocates and society-at-large. From the government’s perspective, using more wiretaps makes sense because wiretaps can yield…

Prosecutorial error and misconduct can cause significant problems in the criminal justice system. Prosecutors are ministers of justice who “may not seek a conviction at any price.” A prosecutor has “an affirmative obligation to ensure that a defendant receives a fair trial, no matter how strong the evidence of guilt.” But the prosecutor is not…

The Minnesota Supreme Court recently held in State v. Chute that evidence obtained without a warrant from a plain-sight investigation of a person’s driveway, which is impliedly open to the public, is the result of an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment and, therefore, must be suppressed. Applying the Dunn factors, the majority found the…

In its recent holding in Hall v. State, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled on two separate issues related to the Minnesota Unclaimed Property Act (MUPA). The first issue was whether owners of unclaimed property taken into the custody of the State pursuant to MUPA were entitled to the interest the property accrued while it was…

‘Til it happens to you, you don’t know how it feelsHow it feels‘Til it happens to you, you won’t knowIt won’t be realNo, it won’t be realWon’t know how it feels The #MeToo movement has reignited a conversation about eliminating the statute of limitations for criminal sexual conduct, specifically felony sexual assault. Some states have…

In State v. Hensel, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that a disorderly conduct statute was unconstitutionally overbroad because it reached conduct protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Hensel dissent agreed that the statute was overbroad, as did the district court. Given this general concurrence regarding overbreadth, it should come as…

In Sorchaga v. Ride Auto, LLC, a case involving the implied warranty of merchantability, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that fraud is a “circumstance” that makes “as is” disclaimers of implied warranties ineffective. In reaching its decision, the court relied on the dictionary definitions of “unless,” “circumstances,” “indicate,” and “otherwise” to ascertain their plain and…

In Frederick v. Wallerich, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that an attorney’s later failure to identify an earlier error, leading to a loss of an opportunity to mitigate damages caused by the initial error, could constitute a separate instance of legal malpractice triggering its own limitations period. In Wallerich, the court declined to dismiss an…