Ian Millhiser

Probably the most important one is a doctrine that emerges from a case called In re Neagle.

It's an 1890 case, so this is really old, and it involves a federal law enforcement officer who...

who shot a man in the course of duty, the state of California wanted to prosecute him and Neagle set the rule that in most but not all cases, when a federal law enforcement officer is acting within the scope of their duties, the state cannot prosecute them.

Well, so the short answer to that is that it's unclear because about six months ago, last June, the Supreme Court handed down another case called Martin v. United States where they said that Neagle is – it's certainly weaker than I used to think it was.

They weakened Neagle somewhat.

What I get out of Martin is that protections for federal law enforcement officers against state prosecutions are not absolute.

So they are not what J.D.

Vance said they are, even though there is still some protection there.

I think that if the state of Minnesota prosecutes – and that's a big if here because first of all, we don't know if they're going to be able to conduct a thorough investigation given the federal sabotage.

And second of all, we don't know what the results of that investigation will be.

Maybe they determine that they can't bring a successful prosecution here.

Even if Jonathan Ross is guilty, the prosecutors still have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

And so they may determine that they just don't have enough evidence that it's worth going to a jury.

But if they bring a prosecution, I think that the state of the law governing when a state can bring a prosecution against a federal officer is very unclear right now.

And this – especially given how high profile this case is, this is the sort of case that I could easily see winding up in front of the Supreme Court.

So the short answer is I think it depends a lot on what the courts say.

What the Supreme Court said recently in Martin, though, is they essentially said that, well, we only want Neagle to apply when we know that this officer is actually carrying out federal duties.

All that I have to say about that language is I'm a good enough lawyer.

If I was a Minnesota state prosecutor, I could argue that shooting someone when they had their wheels turned against you and they weren't a threat to you is not –

you know, necessary and proper to the discharge of federal law enforcement and therefore prosecution should be allowed.