In a rare ruling, a federal judge in Minnesota this week tossed out a criminal case against a man who was charged last year with unlawfully possessing a firearm.
The ruling by Judge Paul A. Magnuson on Monday came after federal prosecutors said in a court filing that factors including a staffing shortage had prevented their office from meeting a deadline in the gun case. The U.S. attorney’s office has seen an exodus of experienced prosecutors who said they objected to the way the Justice Department handled cases related to the crackdown on illegal immigration in the state.
Judge Magnuson, who was nominated to the bench in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan, dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning that federal prosecutors cannot charge the defendant again based on the same evidence. Judge Magnuson concluded that the defendant’s constitutional right to be tried in a timely manner had been violated.
The dismissal comes as the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota grapples with a torrent of cases connected to the immigration crackdown, which began late last year. That mounting caseload includes criminal charges against protesters, as well as dozens of lawsuits by immigrants challenging the legality of their detentions.
More than a dozen prosecutors left the office this year after an internal clash over an investigation into the killing of Renee Good, one of three shootings by federal agents during the crackdown in Minnesota.
In recent weeks, federal judges have criticized U.S. attorney’s offices around the country in unusually stark terms for missing deadlines and for violating judicial orders in dozens of cases stemming from detentions of immigrants.
Lawyers who follow federal court proceedings said the dismissal of the gun case was exceedingly rare, noting that prosecutors are typically vigilant of speedy trial rules. Daniel N. Rosen, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, declined to comment on the dismissal of the gun case.
Kevin DeVore, an attorney for the defendant, Tavon T. Timberlake, called the dismissal “very unusual” and said that his client was “obviously very pleased” with the outcome.
“I’ve been practicing law for 30 years, a lot in federal court, and I’ve never had an indictment dismissed by an order of a judge,” Mr. DeVore said.
Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor in Minnesota who teaches law at the University of St. Thomas, called the deadline lapse that contributed to the dismissal an “embarrassing episode.” He said he viewed it as a sign, along with the concerns voiced by other federal judges in recent weeks, that the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota was buckling.
“It’s a very dangerous inflection point because we risk the public losing confidence in this crucial part of the justice system,” Mr. Osler said.
In a previous case, Mr. Timberlake was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison in 2011 after being convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm. That was his fifth conviction for that charge, the Justice Department said in 2011. He was first convicted of a felony in a 2000 drug case, according to court records.
In the most recent case, Mr. Timberlake, 46, was indicted by a grand jury in June on a single count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Prosecutors said in court filings that the indictment “arose from a two-month surveillance of Timberlake’s drug trafficking activity.” Had the case gone to trial, Mr. DeVore said he would have argued that investigators had failed to conclusively establish the gun they seized in a vehicle when Mr. Timberlake was arrested was in his possession.
Ten days before Mr. Timberlake’s trial was set to begin on Aug. 25, a federal prosecutor asked a judge to push back the trial, saying he had not had enough time to prepare. Court records show that the judge assigned to the case, David S. Doty, also a Reagan appointee, did not act on that motion.
The case docket remained mostly dormant through the end of last year. Then on Jan. 9, two days after Ms. Good was killed, Mr. DeVore asked that the indictment against his client be dismissed, arguing that Mr. Timberlake’s right to a speedy trial had been violated.
Federal prosecutors twice sought extensions of time to respond to that motion, and they missed a deadline assigned by Judge Doty. They said a staffing shortage in their office and a family emergency had contributed to the delay.
When they eventually responded, prosecutors pushed back on Mr. DeVore’s arguments, arguing that their motion from August should have paused the clock on speedy trial considerations.
But Judge Magnuson, who ruled on the dismissal motion on behalf of Judge Doty, disagreed.
“Under these circumstances,” Judge Magnuson wrote, “the court must grant the motion to dismiss.”
Last week, Mr. Rosen announced a new leadership team to replace the senior prosecutors who had left the office in recent weeks, according to an email obtained by The New York Times. Among the new division chiefs was one of the two prosecutors assigned to the Timberlake case.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy. He welcomes tips and can be reached at elondono.81 on Signal.
The post Judge Dismisses Minnesota Gun Case as Prosecutors Struggle With Resignations appeared first on New York Times.
