Simon Leads Change in DWI Legal Process

Minnesota's DWI legal process has undergone a number of changes under the direction of Professor Steve Simon. In 1982, Simon founded the Minnesota Criminal Justice System DWI Task Force, made up of criminal justice system professionals and traffic safety advocates. The Task Force is an organization of Minnesota criminal justice system professionals and lay traffic safety advocates which meets at the University of Minnesota Law School to discuss the implementation of Minnesota’s DWI laws. Task Force initiated DWI laws include criminalizing implied consent test refusals, administrative plate impoundment, intensive probation programs for repeat offenders, enhanced penalties for driver's license violations for repeat DWI offenders, administrative vehicle forfeiture for repeat offenders, tightening vehicle transfers and registration to make it more difficult for repeat offenders to acquire vehicles, adoption of objective chemical use and abuse assessment standards, expanding the DWI-Drug provisions of the DWI law, and numerous technical corrections in the DWI law to increase its effectiveness and clarity.