County attorneys push back on Senate crime bills

Republicans in the Minnesota Senate have made “getting tough on crime” one of their top priorities, but they’re running into pushback from county attorneys who say they’re being unfairly targeted.

“The Legislature has every right in the world to weigh in on the issue of prosecutions or the lack of them by county attorneys,” says Sen. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson, the author of a bill that would give county attorneys less discretion on whether to charge a crime.

County attorneys say charging decisions are often complicated and usually are the result of there being enough “probable cause” to charge a crime but not enough to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt.

“Frankly we shouldn’t charge any case that doesn’t have sufficient admissible evidence to prove at trial beyond a reasonable doubt that the person committed the crime,” testified Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman. ”That’s my standard, and I think it’s the proper and right standard.”

Another bill would require prosecutors to file reports on why they choose not to charge cases police bring to them.

Freeman says Hennepin County is already overwhelmed with 10,000 cases in adult court and 5,000 in juvenile court. “Reporting all that would be a huge waste of scarce resources,” Freeman testified.

Then it was police testifiers who pushed back.

“Collecting data is not a waste of time,” Maple Grove Police Chief Eric Werner said. “Collecting data is a tremendously valuable expenditure of our time.”

Neither bill received a vote in the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee, but they will be considered for inclusion in a larger public safety bill later in the session.