Meet Michelle MacDonald, Republican candidate for the Minnesota State Supreme Court.
Michelle MacDonald's mug shot from her DUI arrest on 9/12/2013.
From the PiPress:
Jurors shown video of Supreme Court candidate's DWI arrest [Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.]In Minnesota, MacDonald must be well aware that for refusing to take some form of test - breathalyzer, blood test, or urine test, etc., she can lose her drivers license. I find this case particularly interesting having just served jury duty on a DUI case. MacDonald then (allegedly) was arrested having violated the terms of the sentence for the DUI case.
(Saint Paul Pioneer Press (MN) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 17--What started as a cordial Rosemount traffic stop ended with Michelle MacDonald screaming at police officers to get their hands off her as they pulled her from her car and accusing them of lying to trump up the charges against her.
Video and audio of MacDonald's April 2013 arrest were played Tuesday during her drunken-driving trial in Dakota County District Court in Hastings. She is also charged with refusing a blood-alcohol test, obstructing the legal process and speeding.
The case is expected to go to the jury Wednesday after closing arguments.
A family law attorney, MacDonald was endorsed in May by the state Republican Party as a Minnesota Supreme Court candidate. She had a falling-out with party leaders after her criminal charges were widely reported.
Rosemount police officer Alex Eckstein, who pulled MacDonald over about 11:20 p.m. April 5, 2013, testified Wednesday. He clocked her going 8 mph above the posted speed limit of 30 mph.
The video shown in court was from his dashboard camera. MacDonald was heard but not seen for much of it.
The stop began in routine fashion: Eckstein said hello and asked if MacDonald knew how fast she was going.
She said she didn't. Almost immediately, she then identified herself as "a reserve cop." The term is used for nonsworn volunteer officers who assist with limited police duties. MacDonald was not one. She later said she misspoke and meant instead that she had attended a citizens police academy.
In his testimony, Eckstein said the remark made him suspicious.
"Typically, when somebody tells me that right away, they're either trying to hide something or lying about something," he said.
In the video, Eckstein then told MacDonald that he smelled a slight odor of alcohol. She said she hadn't had anything to drink. Eckstein said he wanted her to step out of the car for a field sobriety test.
MacDonald said she lived nearby and was just going to go home.
From there, the conversation spiraled into repetition and argument. Eckstein laid out multiple times why he had stopped MacDonald; she repeated again and again that she wasn't getting out of the car and wanted to go home. She said she would walk home if she weren't allowed to drive.
At one point, she said: "I'm an attorney. I do a lot of practice in Dakota County, and I'm not liking this." Eckstein called in another officer, Sgt. Bryan Burkhalter, to assist him. When MacDonald stayed in the car, the officers then arrested her, opening the car doors and pulling her from the vehicle.
She shouted, "Leave me alone!" and "Get your hands off me!" as they did so.
"Is this for real?" she asked. "Are you guys doing this to me?" At the police station, MacDonald continued to argue -- often emotionally and loudly -- that she should be let go. She was a good citizen, she said, and the officers had nothing better to do than fabricate accusations against her.
She did not take a blood-alcohol breath test in the time allotted. About 4:25 a.m., she obtained a private blood test from a hospital that showed a blood-alcohol concentration of less than 0.01 -- the lowest reading the test could give.
Her attorney, Stephen Grigsby, focused his cross-examination of the officers on whether they had probable cause to arrest her for drunken driving. He maintains that they did not and that they simply became frustrated with her exercising her right to stay in the car.
But this is not the only legal problems that MacDonald is facing. She is something of a right wing nut job, and such a poor candidate that the MN GOP has tried to dump her after endorsing her. So Michelle MacDonald filed a complaint against her own party -- and LOST.
MacDonald also filed a motion to allow cameras in the courtroom for her trial, and lost that motion also. MacDonald is arguably not a very successful practitioner of the legal profession, in my personal opinion.
Michelle MacDonald also tried to crash the MN GOP booth at the state fair, creating a scene that clearly argues the woman lacks judicial temperament at the very least, and both bad taste and worse judgment.
But that is not the only legal misadventures MacDonald has had.
MacDonald is primarily a family court attorney, but wants to abolish the family court system. Not sure how someone adopts a child, or gets a divorce without family court, but apparently MacDonald doesn't care.
MacDonald also is one of the Bible thumper crowd who want to insert religion into our judicial system -- specifically HER religion, not yours or mine or someone else's (or choice not to embrace a religion). And of course, she is pro-2A, although I'm not sure this nut job could discuss it with any intelligence or knowledge.
But conservatives of the crazy stripe -- and the part of Minnesota that elected that OTHER Michele shows they exist in some numbers -- will love her position on abortion, guns, and hating the government system she wants to join. And the NRA should love her -- one more bat-shit crazy to stuff and put on a shelf alongside Ted Nugent and the other whackos.
Or maybe she'll just end up behind bars before the election?