UPDATE: Michelle MacDonald was convicted of obstruction of justice relating to her DUI arrest, a gross misdemeanor.
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We are told that the pro-gunners are always so law abiding, responsible and safe. They are not. In a recent post, my co-blogger Laci took an Oregon candidate endorsed by the NRA to task, both for her arguably poor judgement and for becoming a candidate while embroiled in a felony trial. She is not the only one.
Meet Michelle MacDonald, Republican candidate for the Minnesota State Supreme Court.
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We are told that the pro-gunners are always so law abiding, responsible and safe. They are not. In a recent post, my co-blogger Laci took an Oregon candidate endorsed by the NRA to task, both for her arguably poor judgement and for becoming a candidate while embroiled in a felony trial. She is not the only one.
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:
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.Jurors shown video of Supreme Court candidate's DWI arrest [Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.]
(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 judgement.
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?
Dog gone: "In a recent post, my co-blogger Laci took an Oregon candidate endorsed by the NRA to task, both for her arguably poor judgement and for becoming a candidate while embroiled in a felony trial."
ReplyDelete"Embroiled", huh? So in other words, she's not the one actually accused of a felony, but she is likely to serve as a witness. The horrors.
No, the Oregon candidate is embroiled because she performs unnecessary surgeries that are not supported by anything other than unreliable anecdotal information which is notoriously unreliable. She behaved in a manner that appears to be unprofessional and unethical, in performing surgeries that do not prove effective and which sometimes actually harm her patients.
DeleteOr perhaps you don't understand the word embroiled? Or did you just not read for comprehension that there are serious problems with the medical practices of the candidate?
I notice you can't come up with a defense for the MN GOP candidate for the Supreme Court of MN either.
TS, She may not serve as a witness since that could lead to fifth amendment issues.
Delete"both for her arguably poor judgement and for becoming a candidate while embroiled in a felony trial."
DeleteAs I said in the other thread, its all a matter of timing. She announced her run for the Senate seat in October 2013 and Parker was charged in April of 2014, five months into the campaign. And has been stated before, there seems to be no mention at all of any culpability. Might you have any hard data on that?
Typical Minnesota nut job. This State is no example to be used for anything.
ReplyDeleteNah, she only represents the conservative extremists. Most of MN is neither.
DeleteOK, but you know there is a LONG list of nut jobs from Minnesota and I think Bachmann is their nut job leader. B. Maher just named Kline his nut job to turn out of office. And don't forget Rudy B. the plywood king and Jessie Helms best buddy.
DeleteThere are good and bad in every state, but one Michele Bachmann should count for about a hundred.
DeleteRudy wasn't really a nut job, and as someone who was jewish, I don't think he quite bought into the worst of Jessie Helms' crazy.
DeleteKline is not nuts, either; he's just a crook, a typical right wing, up-for-grabs-to-the-highest-bidder politician.
MikeB, Michele Bachmann succeeded in getting elected ONLY because her district was so successfully gerrrymandered. It LITERALLY looked a lot like a salamander - the 'mander' in gerrymandered.
DeleteDog gone: “She behaved in a manner that appears to be unprofessional and unethical, in performing surgeries that do not prove effective and which sometimes actually harm her patients.”
ReplyDeleteIt appears that way to you, maybe. But an objective viewer will see that her surgeries have done a lot of good for her patients. Much like with gun issues, you don’t like to look at the good side. Her practice is controversial because she stretches the boundaries, and will help people whom others have turned down. Sometimes you need to stretch boundaries in order to make advancements. Does that make her more liable to commit malpractice? Sure, she’s taking on more risk than others in her field. But she’s not charged with malpractice, is she?
Dog gone: “I notice you can't come up with a defense for the MN GOP candidate for the Supreme Court of MN either.”
I haven’t looked at her case, so I don’t have any comments. You see, I don’t just jump in with my opinion if I don’t know the material. Both you and Laci are guilty of that in the Wehby thread.
Given there is no evidence to support doing surgeries in the first place, there is no justification for any claim that her surgeries do a lot of good either.
DeleteYou just desperately WANT to believe that, because Wehby is a gun loon.
The ONLY thing we know is that her surgeries are contrary to accepted medical practice and that she does harm. THAT is the scientific way of looking at it -- if you are an objective observer.
That goes double if you in fact have any experience working with medical malpractice claims, as I do.
This post is about MacDonald; if you're not going to look at the case(s) plural, I suggest you direct your comments to where they belong -- the Wehby post by Laci.
Btw, since you are not 'charged' with medical malpractice, which is a civil suit, we don't know if MacDonald has any pending malpractice suits or past suits, or current malpractice insurance. An INFORMED objective observer would know that.
DeleteIf Wehby has a 10% or greater failure rate, I'd bet she has plenty of malpractice trouble.
I would also not be surprised if she faces some trouble with her medical license over this.
"Btw, since you are not 'charged' with medical malpractice, which is a civil suit, we don't know if MacDonald has any pending malpractice suits or past suits, or current malpractice insurance."
DeleteI'm not sure if this source is a reliable indicator, it being the government and all, but I'm not seeing anything here. However, they do include the caveat that it only tracks closed cases. Do you know of any open cases DG?
"Board Orders
There are no public orders on file for this Licensee."
https://techmedweb.omb.state.or.us/Clients/ORMB/Public/VerificationDetails.aspx?EntityID=1449882
"Malpractice Claims
The Oregon Medical Board has no closed malpractice claims on file for this licensee."
https://techmedweb.omb.state.or.us/Clients/ORMB/Public/VerificationMalpractice.aspx
Don't know - but it looks like it would not be tracking cases where an insurance company paid off before a suit was filed.
DeleteDG, you forgot to mention that all male Republican Tea Party people are wife beaters.
ReplyDeleteorlin sellers
No, I leave the stupid comments to you Orlon fluff-for-brains.
DeleteThe Florida congresswoman said: "Scott Walker has given women the back of his hand. I know that is stark. I know that is direct. But that is reality."
DeleteWasserman Schultz added: "What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back. It is not going to happen on our watch."
DG, there you go again, it wasn't me who said it, it was your crazy DNC chair
who made the comment. Try to keep up.
orlin sellers
Orlon fluff-for-brains, even by your own quote, you show that Wasserman-Schultz made a perfectly accurate comment about Scott Walker.
DeleteAnd she is right that Tea Party extremists are anti-women, and anti-progress -- also anti-equality, but she makes no differentiation between men and women tea baggers.
And no, Wasserman-Schultz is not crazy. Nor does Wasserman-Schultz speak for me (although I agree with her completely about Scott Walker).
Try not to embarrass yourself SO consistently. Although by now it seems apparent that you are unable to do so on any regular basis.
If the shoe fits, wear it. (IT FITS)
In other words, you agree with that nut job Wasserman that all male Tea Party members and Scott Walker are women beaters.
DeleteWay to go.
orlin sellers
Minnesota does have an interesting collection of eccentric political beliefs, though it averages out and works pretty well overall. Of course we have even elected an "independent" as Governor. In reality though, his platform wasn't much different than the DFL party. And of course, there were the checks and balances of the legislative process to keep him as honest as politicians ever get. In fairness, former Governor Ventura did sign into law Minnesota's shall issue permit law, so I'll give him props for that.
ReplyDeleteIn the area of interesting liberal Minnesota politicians, we also have Phyllis Kahn, who while authoring the now almost universal Clean Indoor Air Act, has also come out with proposed bills to reduce the voting age to 12 and to repeal the ban on first cousins marrying.
Kahn was a little out there on the voting age of 12, but in her defense the trend is towards lower voting ages. The minimum voting age in the Scottish Independence referendum, for example, was 16. If I recall correctly, her motion - initiated to prompt discussion, not serious - took place back around the era when the voting age was in the process of being dropped to 18 by the 16th amendment to the Constitution.
DeleteAs to first cousins marrying, the U.S. is the last nation with bans against it, and other states have already removed any prohibitions against it. With the status of genetic testing available the need for it has been long gone, so that hardly makes Kahn crazy like Michelle Bachmann.
"If I recall correctly, her motion - initiated to prompt discussion, not serious - took place back around the era when the voting age was in the process of being dropped to 18 by the 16th amendment to the Constitution."
DeleteActually its the 26th Amendment, which was ratified in 1971. Kahn originally proposed dropping the age to 12 in 1989. And it seems to be a recurring effort, with the most recent being a proposal to lower the age to 16 in 2012.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.php?b=House&f=HF1951&ssn=0&y=2011
So much for dog gone's awesome research skills...
DeletePersonally if you ask me lowering the age to 16 doesn’t make sense to me. Regardless of how much we progress, certain things you always get with age. My cousin who works for a Los Angeles DUI lawyer often tells how teenagers spoil their life by driving drunk without realizing what impact it will have on their future life.
ReplyDelete