There would be many obstacles for any prosecutors trying to bring a case against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis last week.
If the state were to charge the agent, the U.S. Constitution makes it difficult for state authorities to prosecute federal officers for actions taken while on duty.
Even if the state cleared that hurdle, it is difficult to convict law enforcement officers in any circumstances, let alone those as contentious as the shooting of the woman, Renee Nicole Good.
And the Trump administration, all but guaranteed not to bring a federal case, is refusing to share evidence with Minnesota authorities.
But Minneapolis’s top prosecutor, Mary Moriarty, said in an interview on Wednesday that lack of access to the federal investigation was “not a complete barrier” to prosecution.
“This isn’t a whodunit,” she said, adding that she was exploring ways to compel the F.B.I. to share the evidence.
A thorough investigation likely would take months and require a detailed analysis of the episode, which began when Ms. Good, parked across a road, was approached by ICE agents and ordered out of her S.U.V. When she instead began to drive, the agent, Jonathan Ross, who was bracing himself against her vehicle with one arm, fired three times, killing her.
The episode was recorded on several cellphones and footage was instantly ubiquitous.
Legal experts said that while a prosecution was feasible, securing a conviction would be a struggle.
Steve Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University’s law school, said that given the videos, finding probable cause to charge Mr. Ross would not be a stretch. But, he said, “it gets much harder after that.”
Asked for a representative for Mr. Ross, ICE directed comment to a Minnesota lawyer and Republican candidate for governor, Chris Madel, who said that Mr. Ross had applied to the U.S. Department of Justice for representation.
Here’s what to know about the complexities of prosecuting Mr. Ross:
The Shooting
On Wednesday, Jan. 7, Ms. Good, 37, was in her S.U.V., demonstrating against an ICE operation. A video taken by Mr. Ross shows that he approached her vehicle from the passenger side before circling counterclockwise. The video captures Ms. Good saying, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad.”
After briefly returning to his own vehicle, Mr. Ross moves to the front of Ms. Good’s Honda Pilot. Ms. Good initially puts the Honda in reverse but then drives forward. She briefly drives toward Mr. Ross. He braces his hand against the S.U.V. and unholsters his gun. Ms. Good turns the wheel hard to the right, away from Mr. Ross, who fires into the vehicle three times, killing Ms. Good.
At least one bullet hole was left in the windshield; other shots appear to have come from the side.
Video analyses by The New York Times show that Mr. Ross’s feet are not in the path of the Pilot when he fires.
Trump administration officials accused Ms. Good of having been in the wrong and engaging in domestic terrorism. “The reason this woman is dead is she tried to ram somebody with her car and that guy acted in self-defense,” Vice President JD Vance said last week.
Minnesota officials have disputed that conclusion. “I’ve watched multiple videos, from multiple perspectives — it seems clear that Ms. Good, a mother of three, was trying to leave the scene, not attack an agent,” Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, wrote last week.
The Jurisdiction
Given the Trump administration’s swift reaction to the shooting, and the White House’s tight control over the Justice Department, federal prosecutors will almost certainly not bring charges. Six Minnesota federal prosecutors resigned over questions about whether the department would investigate Mr. Ross, and its push to investigate Ms. Good’s widow.
That would leave any prosecution of Mr. Ross in the hands of state authorities, who might have jurisdiction to charge the agent but would have to fight for the ability to do so. The Constitution’s Supremacy Clause bars state prosecution of federal officers in a broad range of circumstances.
That clause does not definitively prevent federal officers from ever facing criminal charges. To avoid prosecution, the federal officer must have been performing an act he was “authorized to do by the law of the United States” and have done “no more than what was necessary and proper,” according to a recent judicial opinion.
The burden is on the state to show that an officer overstepped those bounds.
Success is rare, but it happens. In the case of the Ruby Ridge standoff in Idaho in 1992, a local prosecutor charged an F.B.I. sniper with manslaughter. A federal court threw out the charges, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that decision, saying that there were enough factual issues in dispute to warrant moving forward. The case was later dropped, partly because so much time had passed.
The Use of Force
Police officers can use deadly force to defend human life or prevent serious bodily harm, and in many instances have said that a moving car posed a deadly threat. In order to convict Mr. Ross, prosecutors would have to persuade a judge or jury that a reasonable officer, facing the same situation as Mr. Ross, would not have shot Ms. Good.
A court may be asked to weigh evidence such as which direction the car’s wheels were facing when the agent fired and where exactly he was standing. But “what matters is what he perceived,” said Ed Obayashi, a California sheriff’s deputy who is also a special prosecutor in use-of-force cases. “I don’t want to get hit by a 5,000-pound moving object, even if it is going slow.”
Ashley Heiberger, a retired police captain and use of force expert, noted that an officer’s actions are supposed to be weighed without the benefit of hindsight.
“When these things are happening as fast as they do, the mind’s ability to comprehend and react is not instantaneous — there’s a lag,” he said. “Officers don’t have any faster reflexes than anybody else.”
Some factors could work in prosecutors’ favor.
Use of force determinations were once limited to the “moment of threat,” excluding considerations about whether the police themselves had escalated danger. But a recent Supreme Court ruling held that “a court must consider all the relevant circumstances, including facts and events leading up to the climactic moment.”
That could let a jury assess Mr. Ross’s interactions with Ms. Good and her vehicle before and after the shots, and to take into account any comments she and he may have made. In addition to Ms. Good’s remarks, video captures Mr. Ross saying “fucking bitch.”
A defense lawyer would likely have to justify each of the three shots Mr. Ross fired.
Paul Butler, an expert on police use of force who teaches at Georgetown’s law school, noted that the sequence of the shots and the position from which they were fired would be relevant.
“If Bullet One were fired right before or at the moment where the car hit him or grazed him, and Bullets Two and Three were fired shortly after that, under the law, he would still have to demonstrate that he reasonably feared for his life” when he fired each shot, Mr. Butler said.
Mr. Butler cautioned that it was difficult to assess what charges could be brought, saying, “We need reliable forensic evidence, which we are unlikely to get from the United States Department of Justice.”
The Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has declined to share evidence with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state agency that investigates deaths caused by law enforcement. Trump administration officials have claimed — incorrectly — that the state has no jurisdiction.
That means that state investigators do not have access to what could be crucial evidence like Ms. Good’s car and the autopsy report.
But local and state prosecutors are collecting publicly available evidence such as the videos of the episode. Minnesota, like other states, has a variety of homicide charges that range from manslaughter to first-degree murder, but Ms. Moriarty said it was too early to consider whether any might apply.
“We don’t know whether we will have enough evidence to make a decision,” Ms. Moriarty said.
But, she added, no case is perfect: “We get cases every day that don’t have all the evidence that we would like to have.”
Shaila Dewan covers criminal justice — policing, courts and prisons — across the country. She has been a journalist for 25 years.
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