Are Minnesota DUI laws too lax?
Posted at 4:37 PM on December 28, 2009 by Bob Collins (11 Comments) Filed under: Crime and Justice A man with a history of drunk driving, who was caught driving drunk in Newport over the long weekend, will not be charged with felony drunk driving. Paul Garay, 55, is going to prison either way. He was ordered held on a parole violation and will have to serve 10 months remaining on a 90-month sentence, the Woodbury Bulletin reported. This is one of the stories where the headlines lead to more outrage than the facts. It can sound like a lenient judge or lax drunk driving laws in Minnesota, but neither is true. The law is funny like that. Here’s what has to happen for a drunk driving conviction as a felony: Minnesota criminal law defines the term felony to mean any crime for which incarceration of more than one year may be imposed. Under Minnesota’s felony DWI law, a person who commits first-degree DWI is guilty of a felony and may be sentenced to: >>imprisonment for not more than seven ye
Posted at 4:37 PM on December 28, 2009 by Bob Collins (13 Comments) Filed under: Crime and Justice A man with a history of drunk driving, who was caught driving drunk in Newport over the long weekend, will not be charged with felony drunk driving. Paul Garay, 55, is going to prison either way. He was ordered held on a parole violation and will have to serve 10 months remaining on a 90-month sentence, the Woodbury Bulletin reported. This is one of the stories where the headlines lead to more outrage than the facts. It can sound like a lenient judge or lax drunk driving laws in Minnesota, but neither is true. The law is funny like that. Here’s what has to happen for a drunk driving conviction as a felony: Minnesota criminal law defines the term felony to mean any crime for which incarceration of more than one year may be imposed. Under Minnesota’s felony DWI law, a person who commits first-degree DWI is guilty of a felony and may be sentenced to: >>imprisonment for not more than seven ye
