A ruling from the Minnesota Supreme Court this week clarifies what is considered a 'public place' to include the inside of a car and it's stirring some controversy.
Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt tells WCCO's Adam and Jordana even so, law enforcement still needs probable cause to conduct a search.
"You can't just go eeny, meeny, miny, moe, I'm choosing you and searching your car," says Sheriff Witt. "The other thing is, we need to remember that driving is not a right, it's a privilege. And you, everybody is expected to follow the laws. When you have that probable cause to search a vehicle and it's on a public roadway, I absolutely agree with that."
The ruling stems from a 2022 case against a man accused of carrying a BB gun in his car without a permit to carry. A judge originally dismissed the case saying the deputy didn't have probable cause to search his car.
After an appeal overruled that decision, the Minnesota Supreme Court issued an opinion agreeing with the appeals court, saying the definition of "public place" is not ambiguous.
Witt says the ruling by the Supreme Court shouldn't be a concern for drivers who think law enforcement are now emboldened to do random stops.
"It's not like we are saying that we're just gonna search cars by random," she says. "There has to be a reason for that. There has to be, you have to be able to articulate the reason for that search. So I think it's very important for people to realize that it's not just at random we're gonna search your car."