“Actual physical control” is legal term that is highly litigated in DUI law which the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt to sustain a DUI conviction.

The Newspaper.com reports in January 2010, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of a man who was found asleep in his vehicle in his apartment complex. This despite the defendant was legally parked in his own apartment complex and the engine was cold to the touch. Moreover the keys were in the console and when found did not start the vehicle.

Justice Alan Page (yes the former Minnesota Viking) wrote:

“Although the facts of this case are not those of the typical physical control case in which a jury can infer that the defendant was in physical control because he drove the vehicle to where it came to rest, a jury could reasonably find that Fleck, having been found intoxicated, alone, and sleeping behind the wheel of his own vehicle with the keys in the vehicle’s console, was in a position to exercise dominion or control over the vehicle and that he could, without too much difficulty, make the vehicle a source of danger,” Page wrote. “Based on the totality of the circumstances, the facts in the record, and the legitimate inferences drawn from them, we hold that a jury could reasonably conclude that Fleck was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of being in physical control of a vehicle under the influence of alcohol and with an alcohol concentration of .08 or more.”

The defendant had prior DUI convictions and he was sentenced to four years in prison. This decision is absurd from an intellectual standpoint. The defendant was legally on private property and the car was not operational as written in the Minn Sup Ct decision.

So don’t believe that simply “sleeping one off” in a car will prevent you from being prosecuted for DUI.