State v. Weisen

Defendant Michelle Lee Weisen was questioned by police officers during a traffic stop. Law enforcement repeatedly asked for consent to search her, eventually telling her that if she did not consent to a search at the scene of the traffic stop, she would be subject to a body-scanner search at the police station.  At that point, Ms. Weisen confessed to possessing drugs and agreed to be searched.  The trial court denied a motion to suppress the evidence from the search, and the intermediate appellate court affirmed that decision. Ms. Weisen appealed, and the Minnesota Supreme Court granted review.

SSCI represents the ACLU of Minnesota and the Minnesota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers on an amicus brief arguing that, under existing state and federal precedent, Ms. Weisen’s consent and confession were involuntary and should have been suppressed. We encourage the Court to go further in its holding to prohibit the broader use of trickery and deception, explaining that the Court’s previous attempts to distinguish between types of deception have proved unworkable, and that law enforcement has failed to heed the Court’s past warnings about such tactics. Our brief urges the Court to decide the case under Minnesota constitutional law, which provides stronger protection against warrantless searches than the Fourth Amendment. In the alternative, we suggest that the Court can use its supervisory powers to establish a rule against deception.