Last week the Minnesota Supreme Court handed down a long-awaited ruling in the matter of a woman who lost her driver’s license after driving while drunk to flee her abusive husband. Jennifer Axelberg had a BAL of 0.16 percent when she drove less than a mile from her drunk and abusive husband. He had her cellphone, and she didn’t think she could outrun him on foot. She drove off only after he smashed the car’s windshield and climbed onto the vehicle. In the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Lorie Gildea, the Court weighed the public safety risk posed by a drunken driver against the danger faced by a domestic violence victim, and concluded that Minnesota’s implied-consent statute §169A.53 contains no so-called necessity defense. Check the Supreme Court Opinion page to read this opinion (A12-1341).
In his dissent, Justice Page wrote that the Court’s decision implied “that the necessity defense is unavailable not only in cases of domestic abuse, but also in cases in which a victim’s seeking refuge from a violent physical or sexual assault or kidnapping, and the court’s decision thus discourages those individuals from seeking shelter in a motor vehicle as well.” Recognizing the quandary that the Statute and the Court’s decision may put victims of domestic abuse in, Justice Lillehaug wrote in his dissent that “the Legislature may wish to consider further measures to protect the next Jennifer Axelberg.” Indeed, both Axelberg’s attorney and the executive director of the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women see hope in this decision that the Legislature will recognize the need to adapt the implied consent statute to allow for exceptions like fleeing danger in the not-so-distant future
