This is Minnesota’s Criminal Code. All right? These are the criminal offenses in the State of Minnesota. In this book, there’s a crime that says you shouldn’t go around killing people and if you do, you got to go to prison for the rest of your life. First-degree murder. The most serious crime you can commit in the State of Minnesota, and that most serious crime occupies exactly three-quarters of a single page of this book. Minnesota’s DWI Law, 40 pages long. Forty pages. Forty pages to say you shouldn’t go around drinking and driving, and if you do, you got to go to jail for a little while. Doesn’t really sound like a 40-page concept.

So why is the DWI Law 40 pages long? Well, it’s 40 pages long because, believe it or not, the DWI Law is the only crime anywhere in this book, anywhere in this country where the state gets to start handing out the punishment before you ever set foot into the courthouse. By the time you leave the stationhouse on the night of a DWI arrest, you’ll have in your hand a notice in order of license revocation. The police officer is handing out what is probably, from the driver’s perspective, the most severe punishment they’re going to get is the loss of the ability to drive, often the loss of the ability to earn a living. But that gets handed out by the police officer before you ever set foot into a courthouse.

Now, we were brought up in this country that you’re to be presumed innocent of a crime, unless and until the states can prove it against you beyond a reasonable doubt. But if the police officer gets to hand out the punishment before you ever set foot in the courthouse, it doesn’t sound like anybody’s presuming you innocent of anything.