Minnesota Criminal Attorneys Prepare for Modifications to the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure
In an effort to make the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure more useful, the Minnesota Supreme Court has taken a complete re-write of the rules under advisement and will hold a hearing relative to these revisions on June 30, 2009 at 2:00 PM. A complete copy of the proposed rules may be found at the Minnesota Supreme Court web site.
According to Barbara Jones, associate editor with the Minnesota Lawyer newspaper, what started as a re-working of Rule 26 evolved into a complete overhaul of the present Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure over a 19 month time frame. If the new rules are accepted by the Supreme Court, the hope of the Rules Committee is to have these in use and publication by the fall of 2010.
The amended Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure would contain a more user-friendly approach to the criminal process, including a number of checklists to accompany various hearings, such as omnibus and arraignment appearances. The present framework has been in place since 1975, with many piecemeal amendments made along the way.
