At Session Daily, Mike Cook reports in House OKs $4.3 million bump for AG’s office to assist county attorneys:
If a high-level crime occurs in parts of the state, the local county attorney’s office can be looking for more advanced knowledge — or simply an extra hand — to aid in the prosecution.
A bill on its way to the governor would provide additional assets to a constitutional office to help.
Sponsored by Rep. John Huot (DFL-Rosemount) and Sen. Erin Murphy (DFL-St. Paul), HF29/SF33* would provide $269,000 in the current fiscal year and $2.02 million in each of the next two fiscal years to the Office of the Attorney General “for enhanced criminal enforcement and related initiatives.” The funding is expected, but not required, to fund seven full-time equivalent attorneys and two full-time equivalent legal assistants.
The bill was passed 73-55 Monday, one week after Senate passage occurred via a 35-32 vote.
“It’s not a yes to the AG’s office; it’s a yes to victims; it’s a yes to communities; it’s a yes to people who are looking for justice,” Attorney General Keith Ellison said before members got together.
“We’re backlogged. We need to hire people,” Huot said. Ellison hopes to have new hires on board within the next couple of months.
[WATCH: Pre-session House DFL news conference]
While a county attorney office in the state’s most populous areas can have myriad legal eagles, the numbers are much different in more rural areas. Ellison said about 44 of the state’s 87 counties have three or fewer county attorneys.
Yet, in addition to their regular everyday duties across a variety of issues, these attorneys are expected to handle cases throughout the legal spectrum, including complex, high-level crimes such as murder, sexual misconduct, arson, human trafficking, drug operations and financial crimes. And unlike the larger county offices, these smaller offices often do not have lawyers who practice in such specific areas.
State statute specifies the attorney general’s office as the backup prosecutor for all county attorneys. But that assistance must be requested.
County attorneys have been asking for this, said House Majority Leader Jamie Long (DFL-Mpls). He estimates 70-80 additional cases could be added with the requested funding.
“We stand ready to assist,” Ellison said.
Rep. Harry Niska (R-Ramsey) unsuccessfully offered an amendment to require an annual report to the Legislature on assistance requests, response to each request and an explanation for why any requests were denied.
Republicans also unsuccessfully offered or withdrew amendments specifying crimes for which additional hires should focus, including “violent crimes and crimes that financially harm consumers and businesses,” “organized gang crime, organized drug crime, and organized retail theft," and “investigation and prosecution of waste, fraud, and abuse in government;” and to ensure funding is only for enhanced criminal enforcement, not the vague “related initiatives.”
Here's the Minnesota House Information Services YouTube of the floor debate:
The passage of the bill was praised in a news release from the Attorney General's office:
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s longstanding request for seven more full-time criminal prosecutors in his office will finally become law after the Minnesota House of Representatives passed HF 29, authored by Rep. John Huot, on a bipartisan vote this evening. On January 28, the Minnesota Senate passed companion bill SF 33, authored by Sen. Erin Murphy, also on a bipartisan vote. The bill now goes to Governor Tim Walz, a strong supporter of this request, for his signature.
The current legislative session marks the fourth time Attorney General Ellison has requested funding for these positions from the Legislature. In 2019, 2021, and 2022, the House of Representatives passed his request after Governor Tim Walz included it in his proposed budgets, but each time, the Senate refused to act on it and the proposal died.
The funding will bring the number of full-time prosecutors in Attorney General Ellison’s office from the current three to 10, up from just one when Attorney General Ellison first took office in 2019. The request has had the strong support of county attorneys and the Minnesota County Attorneys Association each year Attorney General Ellison has proposed it, including formal support this year from the county attorneys of Clearwater, Cook, Cottonwood, Freeborn, and Winona Counties and the Minnesota County Attorneys Association.
“The final passage of this bill is a long time coming. It is a yes to county attorneys, communities, and victims who need justice and closure. It’s a yes to the people of Minnesota. I’m very grateful to Representative Huot and Senator Murphy for authoring the bill, to Speaker Hortman, Majority Leader Long, and Majority Leader Dziedzic for making a priority of it, to Governor Walz for his steadfast support for the last four years, and above all to county attorneys for the trust they place in us and the partnership we’ve built together. With these resources, I’m looking forward to greatly expanding our partnership and helping them bring more justice to our communities,” Attorney General Ellison said.
“It is up to us to make sure we have working systems in place to hold offenders accountable and ensure safety for all Minnesotans,” said Representative John Huot, author of the House bill. “With today’s bill passage, we’re one step closer to closing critical funding gaps needed to address and prosecute violent crime.”
Minnesota’s 87 county attorneys have original jurisdiction over the charging and prosecution of almost all felonies in Minnesota. Under Minnesota Statutes Sec. 8.01, however, a county attorney may refer a criminal case for review, charging, or prosecution to the Attorney General. It is primarily county attorneys from greater Minnesota that ask the Attorney General’s Office for this help when serious crimes take place in their communities, as more than half of county attorney offices in Minnesota — 44 out of 87 — have staffs of three attorneys or fewer and may lack capacity to prosecute a relatively rare serious violent crime when one occurs in their communities.
Since 2019, Attorney General Ellison’s office has accepted 47 cases of serious violent crime from 22 counties — all but two in Greater Minnesota — for review, charging, or prosecution when those counties requested the Attorney General’s help under the law. To date, the Attorney General’s Office has not lost a single one of those cases.
Twenty-five years ago, the Criminal Division of the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office had 12 full-time prosecutors who were able to prosecute not only cases of serious violent crime upon the request of county attorneys, but other cases of drug crime, gang crime, white-collar crime, and environmental crime as well. That number of full-time prosecutors had been whittled down to one, however, by the time Attorney General Ellison took office in 2019, which meant that over time, county attorneys had simply stopped asking the Attorney General’s Office to assist with any but the most serious violent crimes. In the last four years, Attorney General Ellison has used existing resources to raise the number of full-time prosecutors from one to three, but a legislative appropriation has been necessary to restore the capacity of the Office to meet county attorneys’ needs and bring justice to crime victims.
This staffing trend in the Criminal Division mirrors overall staffing trends in the Attorney General’s Office: 25 years ago, the Office had about 510 staff, of whom 260 were attorneys, while today, the Office has about 350 staff, of whom 150 are attorneys. Relatedly, the current General Fund appropriation to the Attorney General’s Office is worth only 65 percent of the General Fund appropriation to the Office of 30 years ago in real, inflation-adjusted dollars.
Photo: Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. Photo: Abbie Parr/AP.
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