Harry Litman - How Minnesota Can Convict
Even as the federal government makes grudging gestures toward slightly dialing back operations in Minnesota, it is doubling down on its insistence that it has exclusive authority of any investigation or prosecution of federal officers involved in the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. That stance is likely to reach a climax in an inevitable battle over the issue of supposed federal immunity from prosecution.
At a federal court hearing Monday, DOJ lawyers argued that the shootings arose out of federal immigration enforcement, were carried out by federal officers performing federal duties, and therefore are exclusively federal matters. In recent days, they also denied Minnesota investigators access to the shooting scene even after presented with a state judicial warrant. The state had to go to federal court, which issued an order to preserve all evidence. That level of recalcitrance by the feds, which I have never seen, portends an upcoming campaign of defiance at every turn.
More stunning still, federal authorities are taking steps that appear designed to impede Minnesota from proceeding at all. The state’s interest here is acute: to all appearances, two of its citizens have been gunned down with no legal justification. I have worked on a number of cases involving overlapping federal and state jurisdiction, including the Rodney King prosecutions. In such cases, the federal government invariably cooperates with the state, often deferring to its initial prosecution.
Here, the template is the precise opposite. As a leading expert on police use of force told The New York Times: “Now we’re seeing not only no cooperation but contamination. That’s new territory.” The concern is no longer merely that federal authorities are declining to assist a state investigation, but that they will assert their power in every legal way—and possibly then some—to prevent Minnesota from moving ahead at all.
https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/how-minnesota-can-convict