We are criminal law professors at each of Minnesota’s three law schools. Not only do we teach criminal law, we also practice it, write about it, and have worked to make it better. In short, we understand Minnesota’s criminal laws. This is why we feel so compelled to respond to candidate Jim Schultz’s claims about what he will do if he is elected Minnesota’s next Attorney General.

Schultz has repeatedly said that his first priority as Minnesota Attorney General will be to “prosecute criminals” and vows a dramatic expansion of the AG’s criminal division. Schultz blames Minnesota’s current AG Keith Ellison for not doing more to fight crime during his first term.

But here is the simple truth: Minnesota’s AG does not have this power. In Minnesota, the power to prosecute felonies lies with the State’s 87 county attorneys, who are elected by the citizens of their counties. Minnesota law is unambiguous on this point. The AG has no authority to prosecute criminal cases anywhere in the State of Minnesota unless formally asked by the local county attorney or the Governor (unless a statute explicitly confers such authority).

Jim Schultz has talked about using Minnesota’s RICO statutes to get around this and says that he will take over prosecutions when he disagrees with a county attorney. Though Minnesota’s racketeering statutes may be somewhat ambiguous, the costs of such an approach are not. Any prosecutor will tell you that using a legally questionable, back-door route to expand the AG’s power and wrest control of a felony prosecution will not only alienate local authorities, it is a good way to get a conviction reversed on appeal. More critically, doing so would fundamentally undermine democracy by circumventing the will of the voters who elected their county attorneys.

If Schultz doesn’t know this, he should. If he does, we have more fundamental concerns about his candidacy.

So, what are Schultz’s claims really about? Pure politics, we suspect. Schultz believes that stoking fear of crime will get him elected. While crime rates have risen since the start of the pandemic, to be sure, violent crime is actually trending down, not up, in Minneapolis. And we know that the solution is not to return to the days of fearmongering and extreme policies that drove us incarcerate more people than any other country in the world. If you have any doubt about this, consider some new data. Just last week, a study was released which shows that homicide rates over the last few years increased more slowly in cities with progressive prosecutors than in those with more traditional prosecutors. Earlier this year, another study found that 8 of the 10 states with the highest per capita homicide rates in 2020 have voted Republican in every presidential election in this century. Simply being “tough on crime” is not the answer.

So, what can the AG do to improve the lives of Minnesotans? A lot, and Keith Ellison’s first term in office is a veritable blueprint.

The AG can sue opioid manufacturers and land a $300 million settlement to fight the opioid crisis in Minnesota. Ellison did this.

The AG can protect renters across Minnesota by forcing landlords to stop threatening manufactured home park residents in rural and suburban areas with illegal evictions. Ellison did this, too.

The AG can sue landlords who create unsafe living conditions, nursing homes that defraud residents, and e-cigarette manufacturers who market nicotine to youth. Ellison did all of these things as well.

The AG can, at the invitation of the Governor, prosecute the most significant criminal case in modern Minnesota history against a police officer who knelt on the neck of an unarmed Black man until he drew his last breath. Ellison did this and brought back a guilty verdict before the eyes of the world.

And the AG can protect reproductive rights by upholding the Minnesota Constitution, which, unlike the U.S. Constitution, protects a woman’s right to choose. The AG can also fight the extradition of those who come to Minnesota for lawful procedures. Ellison has vowed to do both. Incredibly, Schultz, who has served on the board of an organization committed to making abortion “not only illegal, but unthinkable,” has called a woman’s right to choose a “peripheral issue” for the AG. In the aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson, we don’t know how anyone, let alone a candidate to be Minnesota’s top lawyer, could call reproductive freedom “peripheral.”

What about protecting the public? Ellison has done that, too. The AG’s Office has accepted every single referral of serious criminal cases from local county attorneys — close to 50 cases across 22 counties — and has obtained convictions in all of them. Ellison has also repeatedly asked the legislature for surplus funds to expand the AG’s criminal division. The legislature has declined.

Our message is this. Jim Schultz is simply wrong when he claims that he can use the criminal law to fight violent crime if he is elected Attorney General. And he is wrong when he says that Keith Ellison should have done so. But Ellison’s first term is a testament to what the Minnesota AG can do under the law to improve the everyday lives of Minnesotans. Over the last four years, Ellison and his staff have used Minnesota law creatively and effectively, again and again, for our collective benefit. This is just one of the reasons why he should serve four more years as Minnesota’s Attorney General.

Professor Perry Moriearty, University of Minnesota Law School

Professor Bradford Colbert, Mitchell-Hamline School of Law

Professor Mark Osler, St. Thomas School of Law