State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A24-0909

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Chad Menford Brehmer,
Appellant.

Filed April 28, 2025
Affirmed
Frisch, Chief Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-22-15253

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Mary F. Moriarty, Hennepin County Attorney, Nicholas G. Kimball, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Mark D. Kelly, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Wheelock, Presiding Judge; Frisch, Chief Judge; and
Connolly, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
FRISCH, Chief Judge
In this direct appeal following his conviction for driving while impaired, appellant
argues that the district court erred in denying his pretrial motion to suppress because police
officers exceeded the bounds of a lawful Terry stop and arrested him without probable
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cause.1 Because the evidence used to support appellant’s conviction was admissible under
the inevitable-discovery exception to the exclusionary rule regardless of the lawfulness of
the officers’ challenged actions, we affirm.
FACTS
Late in the evening of March 20, 2021, two Minneapolis police officers observed a
car traveling the wrong way on a two-way street. The driver of the car, later identified as
appellant Chad Menford Brehmer, “abruptly hit[] the brakes and then revers[ed]
backwards” about 20 to 30 yards into a parking lot. In response, the officers activated their
squad car’s emergency lights to perform a traffic stop. Brehmer stopped his vehicle in an
abandoned parking lot and the officers approached in their squad car “at an angle head-
on.”
As the officers approached, one of the officers said, “Watch out. Watch out.” The
other officer testified that he then “directed [his] attention to the [car’s] driver as he was
reaching down.” Both officers exited the squad car with their firearms drawn and yelled
at Brehmer to put his hands up. Brehmer moved his hands up and down several times
before raising both hands, with one hand outside of the car window. One officer observed
that Brehmer made “a lot of furtive movements . . . with the hands kind of up, down, side
to side,” and specifically noted that he “reach[ed] to the right side.” The officer testified

1 “A Terry stop permits an officer who suspects that an individual is engaged in illegal
activity and also believes that a suspect may be armed and dangerous to frisk the suspect
in order to reduce concerns that the suspect poses a danger to officer safety.” State v.
Flowers, 734 N.W.2d 239, 250-51 (Minn. 2007) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)).
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that he could see Brehmer’s hands when walking toward the car, and that after Brehmer’s
hands were outside the vehicle, “he was pretty compliant.”
One of the officers opened the driver-side door and pulled Brehmer from the car.
The officers both pushed Brehmer to the ground face down and cuffed his hands behind
his back. While Brehmer was handcuffed on the ground, one of the officers patted
Brehmer’s pockets and pulled up his shirt to reveal his waistband. The officer then stood
Brehmer up while handcuffed and brought him over to the squad car. The officers
pat-frisked Brehmer next to the squad car, reaching into his front pants pocket and
removing his wallet. During the frisk, one of the officers felt an object near Brehmer’s
“right buttock area in his underwear.” He asked Brehmer what the object was, and Brehmer
replied that it was “just a pipe.” The other officer removed a glass pipe from Brehmer’s
underwear and, after inspecting it, concluded that it was a drug pipe containing drug
residue.
One of the officers then ran information from Brehmer’s driver’s license in the
police database and, after Brehmer stated that he did not have a license, confirmed that
Brehmer’s license was suspended. The officer stated that he wanted to do “one more frisk
search” before putting Brehmer in the back of the squad car. The officer reached into
Brehmer’s front and back pockets and pat-frisked Brehmer’s body. The officer then placed
Brehmer, still handcuffed, in the back of the squad car. During this time, the other officer
observed that Brehmer exhibited several indicia of drug use, including pinpoint pupils,
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bloodshot eyes, sweating, and fast head movements. Officers also searched Brehmer’s car
and found whiskey plates for the car.2
Brehmer declined to voluntarily submit to field sobriety testing and was thereafter
arrested for driving under the influence of drugs and driving with a canceled license. The
officers transported Brehmer to the police station where he was read his Miranda rights
and asked if he would participate in further questioning and field sobriety tests. Brehmer
declined and requested an attorney. One of the officers applied for and received a search
warrant for Brehmer’s blood or urine for chemical testing. Officers obtained a urine sample
from Brehmer that tested positive for amphetamine and methamphetamine.
Respondent State of Minnesota charged Brehmer with felony DWI pursuant to
Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 1(7) (2020). Brehmer moved to suppress evidence including
the search of his person and car, his statements to the officers on the scene, and the chemical
test of his urine, arguing that the police violated his right to be free from an unlawful search
and seizure under the United States and Minnesota Constitutions. The district court held
an evidentiary hearing and received into evidence body-worn camera footage from the two
officers who stopped Brehmer, a copy of the search warrant, and a toxicology report. The
district court also heard testimony from one of the officers who stopped Brehmer.

2 Special registration plates, known as “whiskey plates,” may be issued when a vehicle is
subject to plate impoundment after a person’s driver’s license has been revoked for a “plate
impoundment violation” including driving while impaired (DWI ) or driving after driving
privileges have been canceled as inimical to public safety. Minn. Stat. § 169A.60,
subds. 1-2 (2024).
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The district court denied Brehmer’s motion to suppress, and the parties agreed to a
stipulated-evidence trial pursuant to Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.01 . The district court found
Brehmer guilty of felony DWI for operating a motor vehicle with a controlled substance in
his body and sentenced Brehmer to 64 months in prison.
Brehmer appeals.
DECISION
Brehmer argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress
because police unlawfully arrested him when he was ordered from his vehicle at gunpoint,
immediately handcuffed, questioned, and detained. In denying Brehmer’s motion to
suppress, the district court concluded, in part, that even if the actions of law enforcement
“were found to constitute an arrest lacking probable cause, all of the evidence . . . would
have been discovered as a result of the traffic stop absent any unauthorized police actions.”
We conclude that the district court did not err in denying Brehmer ’s motion to suppress
because the evidence he sought to suppress would have been inevitably discovered. With
this conclusion in mind, we do not reach the issue of whether the circumstances of the stop
constituted an unlawful arrest.
In reviewing the pretrial order denying Brehmer’s motion to suppress, we “review
the district court’s factual findings under a clearly erroneous standard and the district
court’s legal determinations de novo.” State v. Gauster , 752 N.W.2d 496, 502 (Minn.
2008) (quotation omitted). “Findings of fact are clearly erroneous if, on the entire
evidence, [appellate courts] are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake
occurred.” State v. Diede, 795 N.W.2d 836, 846-47 (Minn. 2011).
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The United States and Minnesota Constitutions prohibit unreasonable searches and
seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. And unless an exception
applies, evidence obtained as a result of an unlawful search or seizure must be suppressed.
State v. Bradley, 908 N.W.2d 366, 369 (Minn. App. 2018) . One such exception is the
inevitable-discovery doctrine, which permits a court to admit evidence obtained as a result
of an unlawful search or seizure “[i]f the state can establish by a preponderance of the
evidence that the fruits of a challenged search ultimately or inevitably would have been
discovered by lawful means.” State v. Licari, 659 N.W.2d 243, 254 (Minn. 2003)
(quotation omitted). To meet this burden, the state’s showing must “involve[] no
speculative elements but focus[] on demonstrated historical facts capable of ready
verification.” Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 444 n.5 (1984).
It is uncontested that the officers had reasonable, articulable suspicion to stop
Brehmer after observing his erratic driving and had reasonable concern for officer safety
such that a Terry frisk was lawful. This frisk would have inevitably revealed the drug pipe
with drug residue in Brehmer’s underwear. Indeed, the officer testified that he would have
found the pipe “regardless” of any of Brehmer’s statements during the encounter.
Similarly, the district court found that “a routine records check inevitably would
have been performed” and would have revealed that Brehmer’s license was canceled as
inimical to public safety and that the vehicle was subject to whiskey plates. Brehmer does
not assert that this finding was clearly erroneous. One officer agreed during his testimony
that it was “standard operating procedure to identify an individual” during a traffic stop,
that the officer would have learned that Brehmer’s license was canceled, and that the officer
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would have discovered that the vehicle should have been displaying whiskey plates when
stopped. See Diede, 795 N.W.2d at 846-47.
Based on these inevitabilities, the officers would have had probable cause to arrest
Brehmer for operating a vehicle while his license was canceled as inimical to public
safety—a gross misdemeanor. Minn. Stat. § § 171.04, subd. 1(10), .24, subd. 5(1) (2020).
And given that probable cause to arrest, officers would have inevitably discovered the drug
pipe with residue on Brehmer in a search incident to arrest. Brehmer’s erratic driving, drug
pipe with residue, and his canceled license and vehicle-registration status, taken together,
formed sufficient probable cause to support a warrant for chemical testing for DWI. See
Minn. Stat. § § 169A.51, subd. 1 (requiring a driver submit to a chemical test when an
officer has probable cause to believe that person was driving while impaired and was
lawfully arrested for driving while impaired). Thus, we conclude that the district court did
not abuse its discretion in concluding that the state “establish[ed] by a preponderance of
the evidence that the fruits of a challenged search ultimately or inevitably would have been
discovered by lawful means.” Licari, 659 N.W.2d at 254 (quotation omitted).
Affirmed.