One of the most aggravating things in more than 3 decades of criminal defense work has been how a conviction for Driving After Revocation or Driving After Suspension would increase and extend the revocation of a person’s Minnesota driver’s license. The Minnesota Department of Public Safety – Driver and Vehicle Services Division (the DMV) controlled those license revocation consequences, not the prosecutors and judges at court.

The DMV has always rigidly imposed its rules without any leniency, negotiating, understanding or compassion for someone’s situation. Even when someone was just driving to work, doing nothing else wrong, trying to earn a paycheck so they could support their family and pay off the fine that caused their license to be revoked, if they got stung with a Driving After Revocation charge, the revocation or suspension of their driver’s license would be extended – longer and longer each time. No sympathy, no alternatives and no leniency from the DMV. Ever.

As a defense attorney, I have a toolbox full of creative work-arounds to try to avoid the harshness and irony of this troublesome cycle. I often found ways to delay pending court cases as long as necessary while I helped people get their license reinstated. When we finally got that accomplished, then I would go to court and figure out a creative way to resolve the Driving After Revocation charge in a way that would not cause that person’s license to be revoked or suspended again.

But the Minnesota Legislature FINALLY had the courage to change the law to stop the relentless license revocation cycle. Effective January 1, 2022, Minnesota Statute 171.16 Subd. 2(b) now provides that the Minnesota Commissioner of Public Safety is prohibited from suspending a person’s driver’s when they are convicted of Driving After Revocation under Minnesota Statute 171.24, Subdivision 1 or 2.

Anyone with a revoked or suspended license still needs to get that cleared up and straightened out; but if they have the misfortune of picking up a Driving After Revocation charge in the meantime, there is now an excellent chance that can be resolved with just a fine without making the license revocation longer.