State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A17-1785

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Quentin Laurel Rasmussen,
Appellant.

Filed September 4, 2018
Affirmed
Halbrooks, Judge

Pennington County District Court
File No. 57-CR-16-700

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Edwin W. Stockmeyer, Assistant Attorney General,
St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Seamus Duffy, Pennington County Attorney, Stephen R. Moeller, Assistant County
Attorney, Thief River Falls, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Kate M. Baxter -Kauf, Special Assistant Public Defender, Lockridge Grindal Nauen
P.L.L.P., Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Florey, Presiding Judge; Halbrooks, Judge; and
Kalitowski, Judge.

 Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.

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U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
HALBROOKS, Judge
Appellant challenges his first -degree aggravated co ntrolled-substance-crime
conviction, arguing that the district court erred by denying his pretrial suppression motion.
We affirm.
FACTS
A Thief River Falls Police Department officer and an investigator from the
Pennington County Sheriff’s Department observed appellant Quentin Rasmussen leaving
a residence on a motorcycle in Thief River Falls . Because t he officer believed that
Rasmussen did not have a motorcycle endorsement, he contacted dispatch . Dispatch
confirmed that Rasmussen did not have a motorcycle endorsement.
The officers followed Rasmussen and stopped him after he failed to signal for a turn.
Rasmussen informed the officers that he did not have a motorcycle endorsement or proof
of insurance for the motorcycle. During the stop, the offic ers noted that , on the license
plate of the motorcycle where the sticker would normally be, there was a tab that said
“Void.” When questioned further, Rasmussen told the officers that the motorcycle was
owned by B.J. Upon the officers’ request, dispatch checked the motorcycle’s license-plate
number and VIN, but n either was registered to anyone. Based on the “Void” tab and the
fact that the license plate was not registered, the officers suspected that the motorcycle was
stolen.
The officers ran Rasmuss en’s driver’s license and learned that he had two
convictions in the last ten years for not having proof of insurance, a gross misdemeanor

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under Minn. Stat. § 169.791, subd. 2(a) (2016). They arrested him, and another officer
who had arrived on the scene to assist performed a search incident to arrest. He found a
scale and three small bags of a white substance that the officers believed to be
methamphetamine. The officers then obtained a search warrant and searched the
saddlebags on the motorcycle, finding a 14.5 ounce bag of methamphetamine, several other
small bags, scales, and $1,500 in cash.
Rasmussen was charged with first-degree aggravated controlled -substance crime
under Minn. Stat. § 152.021, subd. 2(a)(1) (2016). He moved to suppress the evidence
from the arrest, arguing that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest him and that the
evidence was the product of an improperly expanded search. The district court held a n
omnibus hearing on the issue and denied Rasmussen’s motion. He then agreed to a trial
on stipulated evidence pursuant to Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.01, subd. 4, to preserve appellate
review of the suppression issue. The district court found Rasmussen guilty of first-degree
aggravated controlled-substance crime and sentenc ed him to 150 months in prison. This
appeal follows.
D E C I S I O N
Our review is limited to the district court’s ruling on Rasmussen’s suppression
motion. In an appeal from a suppression -motion ruling , we review the district court’s
factual findings for clear error and its legal determinations de novo. State v. Ortega, 770
N.W.2d 145, 149 (Minn. 2009). We may also “independently review the facts and
determine, as a matter of law, whether the district court erred in . . . not suppressing . . . the
evidence.” State v. Harris, 590 N.W.2d 90, 98 (Minn. 1999).

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Rasmussen argues that the officers did not have probable cause to arrest him for
failure to provide proof of insurance. The statute provides:
Every driver shall have in possession at al l times when
operating a vehicle and shall produce on demand of a peace
officer proof of insurance . . . . If the driver does not produce
the required proof of insurance . . . the driver is guilty of a
misdemeanor. A person is guilty of a gross misdemeanor who
violates this section within ten years of the first of two prior
convictions under this section . . . . A driver who is not the
owner of the vehicle may not be convicted under this section
unless the driver knew or had reason to know that the owner
did not have proof of insurance required by this section,
provided that the driver provides the officer with the name and
address of the owner at the time of the demand . . . .
Minn. Stat. § 169.791, subd. 2(a). Rasmussen focuses on the last part of the statute—the
nonowner exception—and claims that he met the exception’s requirements by providing
the arresting officers with the name of the motorcycle’s owner. He contends that because
he met the exception, he cannot be convicted under the statute, and therefore he could not
be arrested for violating the statute.
Rasmussen’s argument assumes that he met the nonowner exception to the statute.
The proof-of-insurance statute requires a nonowner to provide an “officer with the name
and address ” of the veh icle’s owner. Id. (emphasis added). The omnibus hearing
testimony from the officers confirm s that Rasmussen told them that the motorcycle
belonged to B.J. But Rasmussen did not provide the officers with B.J.’s address.
Relying on State v. Wetsch , Rasmussen maintains that he was not required to
provide B.J.’s address. 511 N.W.2d 490 , 492 (Minn. App. 1994), review denied (Minn.
Apr. 19, 1994). In Wetsch, this court omitted the address requirement in its discussion of

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the nonowner exception, stating simply that a nonowner driver may not be convicted under
the proof-of-insurance statute if he “give[s] the officer the name of the car’s owner.” Id.
But the appellant in Wetsch was the owner of the vehicle—not a nonowner driver—and the
focus of the Wetsch court was whether there was a scienter requirement for owner-drivers.
Id. at 491. So the discussion of the nonowner exception —and thus the omission of the
address requirement from that discussion—is dicta. Accordingly, Rasmussen’s reliance on
Wetsch is misplaced. Instead we look to the plain language of the statute, which clearly
requires nonowner drivers to provide a name and an address to qualify for the nonowner
exception. We conclude that Rasmussen did not meet these requirements.
We briefly note that Rasmussen’s argument also fails on other grounds. In State v.
Timberlake, the Minnesota Supreme Court analyzed Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 1a
(2006), which criminalizes carrying or possessing “a pistol . . . in a public place . . . without
first having obtained a permit to carry the pistol.” 744 N.W.2d 390, 395 (Minn. 2008).
The supreme court held that “the ‘without a permit’ language creates an exception to
criminal liability that places a burden on the defendant to come forward with some
evidence of a permit.” Id. And in State v. Williams , the supreme court further clarified
that the statute at issue in Timberlake “operates as an affirmative defense: Once a defendant
produces a permit . . . the overall presumption of innocence operates to shi ft the burden
back onto the state to show the invalidity of the permit, or violation of the terms of the
permit.” 794 N.W.2d 867, 872 (Minn. 2011) (quotation omitted). In terms of creating an
affirmative defense, the proof -of-insurance statute is analogo us to the statute at issue in
Williams and Timberlake. Thus, the nonowner exception is an affirmative defense to

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conviction, not an element of the offense. And the mere fact that Rasmussen could attempt
to raise an affirmative defense at trial does not p reclude officers from arresting him based
on probable cause to believe that he violated the proof-of-insurance statute.
Affirmed.