COURT RESTORES DRUG TESTS IN METH CASES

North Dakota's Supreme Court has reinstated a law that requires
methamphetamine defendants to assent to random drug testing, at their
own expense, if they're freed on bail. A Fargo judge had declared the
provision unconstitutional.

East Central District Judge Steven McCullough used a procedure that
was "not conducive to reasoned decision-making" in ruling the law
should not be enforced, the state Supreme Court justices said in a
unanimous opinion.

"Our jurisprudence for deciding constitutional issues requires an
orderly process for the development of constitutional claims, which
. was not followed in this case," Chief Justice Gerald VandeWalle
wrote in the court's decision Thursday.

The case affects a law passed by the Legislature last year, which
says people who are charged with methamphetamine crimes must agree to
pay for their own random drug tests if they are granted bail.

The issue arose when Brent Alan Hansen, of Fargo, made his initial
court appearance last October on four drug charges, including two
felony methamphetamine charges.

McCullough asked Hansen's court-appointed attorney, Steven Mottinger,
whether he wanted to question whether the law that required testing
for his client as a condition of bail was constitutional.

Mottinger quickly took the hint. Later that day, McCullough issued a
written opinion saying the law encroached on the judicial system's
own rules for granting bail. The law also allows police to conduct a
search without providing reasons to justify it, the judge concluded.

In Hansen's case, McCullough set $5,000 bail and excluded the
drug-testing requirement from a list of conditions Hansen had to
obey. As it turned out, Hansen never posted bail. He pleaded guilty
to several charges.

VandeWalle said the Supreme Court's ruling does not affect Hansen's
case. Instead, the high court's decision Thursday used its
supervisory authority to vacate McCullough's ruling, which means it
no longer has any effect.