They asked kindly at first.
After Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who had recently moved to Minneapolis, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, local law enforcement officials requested a partnership with the federal government to investigate the incident, as they have done in previous shootings by federal agents.
When the Trump administration refused to cooperate, Minnesota prosecutors stepped up their efforts. They sent a series of strongly worded legal letters seeking evidence of the Goode shooting and the shootings of Julio Cesar Sosascelis, a Venezuelan immigrant who was injured a week after Goode’s shooting, and Alex Pretti, who was killed on January 24.
Still, the government rejected the request.
This week, prosecutors in Hennepin County and the state of Minnesota took the next step to forcefully take control of the Trump administration. They filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice over evidence from the shooting, which Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, whose jurisdiction includes Minneapolis, characterized as “unprecedented in American history.”
The Trump administration has refused to release the names of the officers involved in the shootings, even after the Minnesota Star Tribune and ProPublica identified the officers involved in the Goode and Preti incidents.
“The federal government has refused to cooperate with state law enforcement. This is unusual, unusual and completely unacceptable,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told reporters. “[We] You can’t just sit back and let them do it. ”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison held up a copy of the state’s lawsuit against the federal government at a news conference Tuesday. Peter DiCampo/ProPublica
With conflicts over evidence, the case has already become a constitutional chicken game over states’ rights and federal immunity, and the battle will also have implications for other factions that want to hold criminally accountable officials involved in the president’s immigration surge.
So far, neither side shows any signs of backing down, hinting at a fight that could last years. Legal experts said that if prosecutors ultimately indict the federal agents involved in the shooting, the path to trial, much less a conviction, will be fraught with legal and procedural challenges.
“State prosecutors across the country will be watching closely to see what happens in Minnesota,” said Alicia Bannon, director of justice programs at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice.
In bringing charges, the prosecutor’s first test will be to prove that the employee is not entitled to immunity under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. It is a rarely invoked doctrine that protects federal employees from state prosecution if they are acting lawfully within the scope of their duties.
Failure to pass that test will likely result in the case being closed.
Bannon said the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t taken up a case involving the Supremacy Clause exemption in more than 100 years, and the justices have differed on legal issues related to its application.
Jill Hasday, a constitutional law professor at the University of Minnesota, said there’s no easy answer to whether Minnesota can overcome a Supremacy Clause defense.
“It depends on the facts, but the odds are probably pretty low,” she said.
Even if such a battle were to survive, the incident could be plagued by a series of logistical difficulties. Moriarty, who has been leading the investigation, has decided not to seek re-election and plans to retire at the end of the year. This means whoever wins her seat in the November election could inherit the prosecutor’s office.
In addition to not knowing the names of the investigators, prosecutors do not know where they are currently located. Minnesota may have to extradite them from pro-MAGA states that may be reluctant to send them to Hennepin County to stand trial.
“Will the federal government or other states cooperate with that? I think the answer to that is a little vague,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia. (In fact, in a case involving a doctor accused of illegally mailing abortion pills to a woman in Louisiana, California rejected the extradition request, citing the state’s own law that protects doctors from prosecution in other jurisdictions.)
The battle is focused on three gunshots. But Moriarty’s office has opened 14 additional criminal investigations into possible misconduct by federal agents during Operation Metro Surge, which began in early December and concluded in recent weeks.
Other cases Moriarty is investigating include allegations of excessive force and other misconduct by federal agents, including an incident in early January when they allegedly used force against staff and students on high school grounds.
Prosecutors are also investigating outgoing Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who led a surge of migrants into several U.S. cities and was seen on video throwing a green smoke bomb into a crowd at a Minneapolis park. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said at the time that Bovino and other officials were responding to a “hostile crowd.”
This tension is also reflected in a series of requests Moriarty sent to the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. “Public transparency is critical in cases like this, not just for the people of Hennepin County and the state of Minnesota, but for people across the country,” Moriarty wrote in one of his letters. “The only way to achieve transparency is through investigations conducted at the local level.”
Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander at the time, and federal agents confront protesters in the wake of the Jan. 7 shooting death of Goode. Prosecutors said they are investigating Bovino and the use of aggressive force by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deployed to the Twin Cities. Tim Evans
In January, after Goode was shot, federal authorities agreed to participate in a joint investigation with the Criminal Enforcement Division, the Minnesota law enforcement agency tasked with investigating deadly force incidents, according to a letter signed by Moriarty.
State officials speculated they would be able to examine evidence such as the car Good was driving and the gun used to shoot Good and the other victims. However, investigators later learned through public statements from senior Trump administration officials that federal officials no longer planned to share the evidence, the letter said.
Local and state prosecutors do not have the power to issue subpoenas for evidence as they would in a normal criminal investigation. The request letter, known as a Toohey Letter, is a formal written request, used in place of a subpoena, asking a federal agency to provide evidence or testimony in a case to which the government is not a party. Moriarty asked for an extensive list of evidence in the shootings, from the guns fired by investigators in all three incidents to official reports, investigators’ GPS devices and witness statements. Toohey’s letter asked for a response by February 17th.
Timothy Johnson, a political science and law professor at the University of Minnesota, said the federal government typically follows Toohey’s letter as a matter of protocol unless releasing the information violates internal policy.
But on February 13, the FBI told BCA investigators it would not share investigative materials from the Preti case, BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said in a statement. Evans said law enforcement has renewed its request for evidence in the Good and Sosa Celis cases.
More than a month after the deadline set by prosecutors, the Trump administration has yet to turn over any documents.
“There was no cooperation from federal authorities,” BCA spokesman Michael Ernster said.
The agents involved in the shooting have not spoken publicly, but a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson defended the shooting of Good, saying the agents acted in self-defense. They said the Preti shooting is being investigated by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, and the Border Patrol is conducting its own investigation. Such investigations could lead to penalties and prosecutions, including civil rights violations.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said federal authorities found that officers made false statements after Sosascelis was shot. However, the agency did not say whether it would cooperate with local authorities or abide by a court ruling requiring cooperation.
The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment or questions. Neither government agency has responded to the lawsuit.
Moriarty called the case “very important” to the investigation into the shooting, but said his office has not yet decided whether to file charges.
“Whenever a federal or state employee takes a life in our community, there must be an investigation,” she said. “And in the end, the decision may have been legal. You never know, but that’s why we do the investigation. There’s transparency about the outcome of the investigation, and there’s transparency about the decision and how it got there.”
However, there is no guarantee that a lawsuit will get all the results prosecutors want. “So the question is, even if Hennepin County or Minneapolis wins the lawsuit, will they respond?” Johnson asked. “And the answer is probably no.”
If the Trump administration ultimately defies the judge’s order, prosecutors could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said. As for what happens next, “that’s anyone’s guess.”
