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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A25-0166

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Michael Daron Ware,
Appellant.

Filed February 2, 2026
Reversed and remanded
Ross, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-23-20164

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

Kristyn M. Anderson, Minneapolis City Attorney, Cody Goodchild, Assistant City
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Rebecca Ireland, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Johnson, Presiding Judge; Ross, Judge; and Ede, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
ROSS, Judge
Minneapolis police officers stopped a car speeding recklessly through a residential
neighborhood and arrested the driver, Michael Ware, on an outstanding arrest warrant. The
officers then searched Ware’s car and found evidence of marijuana, which the officers in
turn cited in part as support for a search warrant to obtain a sample of Ware’s blood or
2
urine for chemicals. Ware refused to be tested, the state charged him with test refusal, and
Ware unsuccessfully moved the district court to suppress all the evidence obtained from
the encounter. In this appeal from Ware’s consequent chemical-test-refusal conviction, we
reverse the district court’s decision that police validly searched the car because we hold
that the state failed to offer any evidence establishing that the officers conducted the search
according to a police-department inventory-search policy. We remand for the district court
to consider the remaining issue of sanitization of the challenged warrant.
FACTS
Minneapolis Police Sergeant Adam Lepinski saw a car in September 2023 racing
through a residential neighborhood at about 30 miles per hour above the speed limit and
passing cars on the wrong side of the street . Sergeant Lepinski radioed his colleague,
Sergeant Kyle Pond, alerting him that the speeding car was heading his way. Sergeant Pond
saw the car approaching from his rear and pulled over to avoid a collision from behind.
Sergeant Pond then briefly followed the car until it abruptly pulled to the side of the road
where two men—the driver and a passenger —quickly exited.
Sergeant Pond activated his squad car’s emergency lights and ordered the men,
whom he suspected were trying to disassociate themselves from the car, to return to it.
Neither man complied. Sergeant Pond and other officers immediately handcuffed both
men. Sergeant Pond interacted with Michael Ware, the driver. The sergeant promptly
noticed indications of Ware’s possible impairment, including slurred speech and
constricted pupils. Officers directed Ware into a squad car.
3
Sergeant Pond learned that Ware’s driving privileges were revoked and that he was
the subject of an outstanding arrest warrant on an impaired-driving charge. Sergeant Pond
then opened the driver’s door of Ware’s car and immediately began searching inside after
he told another officer his rationale for doing so: “This guy’s got a DWI warrant; car’s
illegally parked; he’s slurring his words, may go with impairment here; um, so I think we’re
good to search.” The search revealed “[b]urnt suspected marijuana,” which Sergeant Pond
included in his application for a search warrant to obtain a sample of Ware’s blood or urine.
Police impounded Ware’s car and took Ware to a medical facility, where he refused to
provide a blood or urine sample despite the search warrant.
The state charged Ware with test refusal under the impaired-driving statute and with
driving after license revocation. Ware moved to suppress evidence, arguing among other
things that the search warrant to obtain a sample of his blood or urine had been issued based
in part on an unconstitutional search of his car. Sergeant Pond testified at the suppression
hearing, and the state correspondingly argued, that the car search was justified as an
inventory search because Ware’s allegedly illegally parked car was impounded after his
valid arrest on the outstanding warrant. The district court denied Ware’s motion. The
parties agreed that the pretrial ruling was dispositive and submitted the case to the district
court to proceed with a stipulated-evidence trial under Minnesota Rule of Criminal
Procedure 26.01, subdivision 4. The district court found Ware guilty as charged.
Ware appeals.

4
DECISION
Ware challenges the district court’s holding that police validly searched his car and
its consequent decision not to suppress evidence resulting from the search. The federal and
state constitutions protect the right of people against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. A warrantless search is presumptively
unreasonable unless it falls within a recognized warrant exception. State v. Stavish, 868
N.W.2d 670, 675 (Minn. 2015). The district court held that, “[i]n this case, the search of
[Ware’s] vehicle was justified in two ways, reasonable suspicion of the officers, and the
standard police procedure of inventory search prior to impoundment.” We review de novo
the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence, and we review its underlying
factual findings for clear error. State v. Diede , 795 N.W.2d 836, 849 (Minn. 2011). We
limit our review to the district court’s pretrial ruling following a stipulated-evidence trial
under Minnesota Rule of Criminal Procedure 26.01, subdivision 4. S ee State v. Galvan-
Contreras, 980 N.W.2d 578, 586 (Minn. 2022). For the following reasons, we conclude
that the district court erroneously deemed the search justified.
I
Ware challenges the district court’s conclusion that the inventory-search exception
authorized the warrantless search of his car. An inventory search is a recognized exception
to the search- warrant requirement if the search is of a vehicle that police have lawfully
impounded and if its contents are inventoried based on particularized, standard police-
department procedure. See State v. Ture, 632 N.W.2d 621, 628 (Minn. 2001). The state
bears the burden to establish that the warrantless search was properly executed as an
5
inventory search. State v. Gauster, 752 N.W.2d 496, 502 (Minn. 2008). The state did not
carry its burden here.
Although the state may rely on officer testimony to establish that a vehicle inventory
search complied with standard police-department impoundment procedures, Ture , 632
N.W.2d at 628, the testimony at the suppression hearing was bare in this regard. The extent
of Sergeant Lepinski’s testimony concerning inventory-search procedure was the
following:
Q: And can you describe the policy and procedure involved in
deciding to search a vehicle?
A: Well, there are several different times when law
enforcement searches vehicles, of course. One of those times
is when you’re doing an inventory search of the car. There’s a
probable cause search of the car. There’s a protected weapon.
So there’s lots of different reasons why you might search a
vehicle. But this one we were impounding, we did an inventory
search.

Q: And so you searched it because you were impounding it,
am I understanding that correctly?
A: Yes.

Q: Okay. And why do you search a vehicle prior to
impounding it?
A: It’s a way for the police department to document any items
in the vehicle that are maybe of value that needs to be
documented. So, you know, the owner can’t come back later
and say: Hey, my gold bars or my Rolex watch are missing.
It’s just a way to, kind of, go through the vehicle and either
document those items or remove them for inventory for
safekeeping purposes.

Sergeant Lepinski did not testify that the department had, or that he followed, any
particularized procedure to establish that officers properly entered specific areas of the car
or inventoried items found and seized. He did not describe how the search complied with
6
any department procedure, generalizing only as to why officers might perform inventory
searches. Sergeant Pond’s testimony shed no brighter light on this issue:
Q: Officer Pond, you make decisions on whether or not to
search a car?
A: Yes, ma’am.

Q: And do you make decisions on whether or not to tow a
vehicle?
A: Yes, ma’am.

Q: Are there certain department policies you must follow when
making these decisions?
A: Yes.

. . . .
Q: And you justified the search of Mr. Ware’s vehicle as an
inventory search; is that right?
A: Yes, if the car is being towed.

Q: Because Mr. Ware was being arrested?
A: Yes.

Q: And because you had determined that the vehicle was
illegally parked; is that right?
A: That was one of the factors, yes.

. . . .
Q: All right. Officer Pond, you assisted in the inventory search
of Mr. Ware’s vehicle; is that right?
A: Yes.

Q: And the purpose of an inventory search is to safeguard
property in the vehicle; is that right?
A: Yes.

Q: And to also ensure that the vehicle does not contain
anything that would harm officers; is that right?
A: Correct.

7
Q: During these searches, officers are to search compartments
that can be accessed without damage to the vehicle; is that
right?
A: Yes, I believe so.

This testimony from both officers lacks key components to justify the car search.
Compliance with department procedure is “the critical factor” in determining whether a
search qualifies for the inventory-search warrant exception. State v. Volkman, 675 N.W.2d
337, 342 (Minn. App. 2004). The testimony presented by the state fails to establish any
department policy directing officers to impound vehicles on the basis that they are parked
more than 12 inches from a curb in residential neighborhoods. Despite the officers’ stated
justification for impounding Ware’s car to safeguard property, Sergeant Pond
acknowledged that Minneapolis police officers are not authorized to seize and impound a
car simply on the notion that the officers intend to safeguard property inside it. And despite
Sergeant Pond’s testimony that officers impounded the car because it was illegally parked
by being more than 12 inches from the curb, he acknowledged that the department does
not authorize impounding an illegally parked car when a validly licensed person is
available and authorized by the owner to drive the car away. The officers’ testimony does
not establish whether Ware asked them to releas e the car to Ware’s passenger. And
critically, the testimony describes no departmental policy authorizing or procedure
governing entry into an impounded car to collect or inventory items found inside the
passenger compartment or other places. And assuming an impound policy and a policy
directing inventory procedures existed and applied here, the state also failed to elicit any
testimony from which the district court could find that the officers followed those policies.
8
These failures are fatal to the state’s assertion, and to the district court’s conclusion, that
the officers’ search falls within the inventory-search exception to the constitutional
requirement for a search warrant.
II
The state does not attempt to defend the district court’s other justification for the
search, which is the “reasonable suspicion of the officers.” Nor do we consider it, as an
officer’s mere reasonable suspicion is not a recognized exception to the warrant
requirement. See State v. Bernard, 859 N.W.2d 762, 766 (Minn. 2015), aff’d sub nom.
Birchfield v. North Dakota, 579 U.S. 438 (2016) (recounting that even probable cause is
insufficient to justify a warrantless search absent a recognized warrant exception). The state
instead argues that the affidavit supporting the impaired-driving warrant for chemical
testing included other bases, independent of the burnt marijuana, which provide probable
cause for the warrant. It relies on the independent-source doctrine, which allows a court to
“sanitize” an affidavit supporting a search warrant because the warrant is supported by
probable cause based on valid evidence independent of the unconstitutionally obtained
evidence. State v. Lieberg, 553 N.W.2d 51, 55 (Minn. App. 1996). The state recognizes
that applying the independent-source doctrine generally requires factual findings by the
district court, see id. at 58 (explaining that part of the independent-source analysis involves
a factual determination that “must receive initial consideration by the trial court”), and it
recognizes that the district court here did not make the necessary findings. The state invites
us to undertake our own factual assessment on the issue because this is an “unusual” case.
We decline.
9
A remand is necessary for the district court to undertake the assessment. A district
court may sanitize a warrant only if it finds that the unlawful search did not prompt officers
to seek the warrant. Id. at 55. The district court here left the issue open, finding that the
evidence discovered in the search that we have determined to have been unlawful “add[ed]”
to the officers’ impression that Ware was impaired. It stated, “From the search of the
vehicle, the officers were able to add to their theory of impairment due to their finding of
marijuana. This then allowed them to properly apply for a warrant for chemical tests on the
defendant.” The district court must determine on remand whether, without the excluded
evidence of the illegally obtained marijuana, the officers would have sought and properly
obtained the warrant based on probable cause.
Reversed and remanded.