Minnesota legal experts caution against state exclusion in ICE shooting investigation

MINNEAPOLIS (CN) — Legal experts say there could be ramifications in the jurisdictional battle between state and federal officials following the fatal Wednesday shooting of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.

Legal experts said Friday the FBI’s decision to remove the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from the joint investigation — denying it access to materials, scene evidence and interviews — is highly unusual, with hardly any precedent of similar actions in the past outside of specific investigations against a state itself.

Emmanuel Mauleón, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, said the decision to withhold evidence from the state serves as a roadblock to justice, and will likely spur distrust and scrutiny of the federal government.

In a high profile case like this, he added, many would hope that everything would be done to ensure a fair and full investigation, but that “doesn’t seem to be occurring.”

“It’s a signal that this investigation becomes less credible, it becomes less transparent,” Mauleón said. “It also is clearly frustrating the efforts of state officials to get to the bottom of what happened … it raises more questions than it resolves.”

Mauleón warned that the fallout of the FBI’s decision could extend far beyond Minneapolis — to Portland, where a federal officer-involved shooting occurred Thursday, and to other events in the future, suggesting that progressive, blue cities will likely continue to be cut out of investigations until a precedent is set against it.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz encouraged federal authorities to allow state investigators to work alongside them, questioning if Minnesotans would trust the outcome without state input.

“It feels now that Minnesota has been taken out of the investigation, it feels very, very difficult that we will get a fair outcome,” Walz said in a Thursday news conference. “I say that only because people in positions of power have already passed judgment— from the president, to the vice president to [Department of Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem, who has stood and told you things that are verifiably false.”

U.S. Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar, both Minnesota Democrats, echoed Walz’s concerns in a letter to the Department of Justice, urging a reversal of the FBI’s decision.

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans released a statement Thursday confirming its reluctant withdrawal from the investigation after the FBI reversed an initial agreement. Evans claimed bureau cannot meet the “investigative standards that Minnesota law and the public demands,” without access to evidence that the federal government holds.

Mauleón said the reaction — and potential concern — is that this is going to be a “politically motivated investigation,” rather than a neutral investigation taken by an independent agency. He pointed to President Donald Trump’s use of the DOJ against his political enemies in the past, and the shrinking gap between the executive branch and the DOJ as reasons why some members of the public might not trust the federal government’s final decision regarding Wednesday’s shooting.

“All of these things are the sorts of things that, I think in any other administration, would bring up impeachment articles,” he said. “There’s a level of egregiousness, flouting of the law, flouting of the separation between the political process and the legal process with this administration.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a press conference Thursday that Minnesota investigators “don’t have any jurisdiction in this investigation” — a statement that Mauleón and University of St. Thomas law professor Mark Osler disagreed with.

“Jurisdiction is defined by the state sovereignty and the government,” Osler said. “The federal government can say we’re not going to cooperate with you, but I would be pretty surprised if they assert authority to stop an investigation … but I’m surprised by a lot of things.”

Osler said that, while it is unfortunate that the FBI is excluding the state’s involvement in their investigation, prejudging an investigation does little to help, and that the outcome could still be fair and reasonable.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty released a statement saying that their office will begin exploring all options to ensure a state level investigation will continue, and later added that, contrary to Vice President JD Vance’s statement, the ICE officer who shot Good does not have “absolute immunity” from charges.

Mauleón clarified that while federal agents enjoy supremacy clause immunity for actions deemed “necessary and proper” to their duties, that is a legal defense to be argued in court — not a shield that prevents a state from bringing charges.

“There is no legal precedent for this ICE officer to have absolute immunity,” Mauleón said, pointing to the Ruby Ridge case in Idaho as an example where state officials successfully brought criminal charges against federal snipers.

For many in Minneapolis, the lack of cooperation between federal and state investigators is a jarring reversal of the joint investigation model used during the 2020 investigations into the officer-involved killing of George Floyd, and will likely do little to calm the frustrations and protests against ICE and DHS involvement in Minnesota.