MINOT — There is a very important case before North Dakota's Supreme Court that speaks to the very nature of our constitutional rights.

Are our rights inalienable, or merely privileges that can be revoked when the government finds our exercise of them inconvenient?

Are these rights ephemeral, or concrete?

Travis Dean Bell is charged with Class A felony criminal vehicular homicide and Class C felony criminal vehicular injury following a June 2024 Grand Forks County crash that took the life of 6-year-old Katarina Louthain and seriously injured her mother, Nicole Louthain. The issue before the state Supreme Court is not the question of Bell's culpability for those alleged crimes, but whether a blood alcohol test administered by a North Dakota state trooper under threat of an additional

See Full Page