The Court ruled in the case of Robin Hensel, of Little Falls, who was cited for disorderly conduct after she moved her chairs closer to city councilors at a meeting, days after the Council rescheduled a meeting when Hensel displayed signs that depicted dead and deformed children, blocking the view of others in the audience. Read more →
Can you steal a car if it never moves? Yes, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today, reversing two lower courts which had said Somsalao Thonesavanh, of Nobles County, couldn’t be convicted of car theft because he didn’t take the car anywhere. Read more →
It’s a curious reality of the Minnesota Supreme Court that you don’t often see the ‘Pawlenty wing’ and the ‘Dayton wing’ of the court lined up against each other, but two cases today highlighted a sharp division over sentences handed to drug offenders since a change in the state’s sentencing guidelines. Read more →
When Harrison Rund was stopped by a Minnesota state trooper in 2014 who searched his trunk and found marijuana, he made a big mistake.
He went home, started drinking, and then went on Twitter. Read more →
Over the objections of one justice, the Minnesota Supreme Court Wednesday upheld the life sentences given to the killer of three people at the Seward Market and Halal Meat on East Franklin Ave., in Minneapolis in 2010. Read more →
Nicole LaPoint argued discrimination after an orthodontist pulled a job offer to her after learning she was two months pregnant and hoped to take maternity time. The orthodontist argued the amount of time off was the concern. Justices today said it’s only discrimination under state law if LaPoint could prove she lost the job because she was pregnant. Read more →
In upholding a lower court ruling, the Minnesota Supreme Court said the woman, who was suspected of possessing meth, had no expectation of privacy when visiting another home.
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The court overturned a Minnesota Court of Appeals decision in the case of Nina Wilson, who indicated on a job application for a mortage services company in 2014 that she completed high school via a GED. She was fired five months later when a background check did not find any evidence she completed school. Read more →
The Minnesota Supreme Court today settled a long-running dispute over whether a BB gun is a firearm under Minnesota’s weapons laws.
It’s not, the court ruled, overturning a ruling from the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and reversing the conviction of a Ramsey County man. Read more →
In 2014, Mary Cocchiarella gave Donald Driggs $2,400 for the first-month’s rent and security deposit for an apartment in Spring Lake Park. But he told her he still had some work to do on the apartment and she wouldn’t be able to move in for another day. Another day — and many days after that — came and went and still she couldn’t move in.
Is she covered by a Minnesota law offering protections for ‘residential tenants’? Read more →
The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that a search warrant that allows police to test the blood alcohol content of a suspected drunken driver can also target the use of drugs, even if there’s no probable cause to suspect drug use. Read more →
The Minnesota Supreme Court today backed a lower court which had refused to allow a former state employee to sue officials in the Dayton administration for information and remarks given to a Minnesota Public Radio reporter about conditions at the state security hospital in St. Peter. Michael Harlow, a psychiatrist at the hospital, was fired Read more →
The Minnesota Supreme Court declared today that school districts can’t expel a student for violating a no-gun policy if the student didn’t willfully violate the policy. Read more →
Thomas Fairbanks argued that he didn’t actually cause Dewey’s death. He claims the decision of Dewey’s family did. Read more →
A Minnesota man asserted that offering women for prostitution was similar to promoting consenting adults in a porn film and therefore protected speech under the First Amendment. Chief Justice Lorie Gildea said no. Read more →
Bob Collins