Police are only required to read the Miranda warning when you are "in custody." A person must be restrained to a degree associated with a formal arrest before you are "in custody." In deciding this issue, the courts consider whether or not a reasonable person in your place would believe he or she was in [...]

You can be arrested for receiving stolen property in Minnesota if you know, or have reason to know, the property is stolen. You would have reason to know the property was stolen if, for example, you bought a Rolex watch from someone on the street corner for only $75.00 when the watch is worth $500.00. [...]

Yes, if you are a defendant charged with a crime in Minnesota, you are entitled by statute to receive a transcript or CD of any statement made by you during the course of a police interview. Your criminal defense attorney will obtain a copy of the confession by making a written request to the prosecuting [...]

If you are convicted of forgery in Minnesota and have no prior record, you could serve anywhere from no jail time to a year and a day at the county workhouse. This is not a prison commit case. Forgery is on the low end of the severity scale since it is considered a property offense [...]

Yes, you should be able to continue the trial date in your Minnnesota criminal case when you fire your existing attorney and retain new counsel. The new lawyer will need extra time to review the evidence in the case, conduct a thorough investigation, and prepare for trial. The best practice would be for the new [...]

A vehicle search without a warrant is illegal under Minnesota law unless it falls within certain limited exceptions to the warrant requirement. If a car was uninsured, for example, a vehicle search could be justified under the inventory exception to the search warrant requirement. Under this exception, the police do not need to obtain a [...]

When you voluntarily go to the police station for questioning, the police have no legal duty to inform you of your right to remain silent or to have an attorney present. Police are only required to read you the Miranda warning when you are in police custody. The police are reluctant to advise you of [...]

Before you can be convicted of driving after suspension, a prosecutor will need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you knew, or should have reasonably known, that your driver's license was suspended on the date of the offense. The prosecutor can meet this burden of proof by introducing at trial a certified copy of [...]

Yes, you can file a petition in Minnesota to expunge a felony theft conviction from your record. The court has the "inherent authority" to grant the expungement petition. You will need to prove to the court at a hearing that the benefit of sealing your criminal record outweighs the detriment to society in not knowing [...]

Minnesota law allows a defendant charged with aggravated assault to assert the right to self defense under certain conditions. Before you may rely on self defense at trial, the law requires that you retreat from the encounter before resorting to the use of force. If it is not possible to retreat from the encounter, you [...]