Header: U.S. Magistrate Judge Shannon Elkins in Minneapolis
May 1 (Reuters) – ?The Trump administration’s assignment of military lawyers to help the Department of ?Justice prosecute civilians for offenses unrelated to the military cannot be prevented by a court as it does not ?violate federal law, a Minnesota judge ?ruled on Friday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Shannon Elkins in Minneapolis reached that conclusion in a closely watched case ?in which a ?defendant challenged the lawfulness of being prosecuted by a lawyer from the ?armed services.
Paul Johnson, a Minnesota resident, was charged with assaulting a Customs and Border Protection agent in January as President Donald Trump’s administration pursued an aggressive immigration enforcement surge in his state.
During the surge, the Defense Department assigned lawyers ?belonging to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps to assist the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, after it ?had ?sent JAGs to help prosecute ?crime in Washington, ?D.C., and Tennessee.
Lawyers for Johnson argued that the use of JAG lawyers to prosecute civilians in ?cases without a military nexus ?violated the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that generally forbids the military from taking part in civilian law enforcement, as well as Department of Defense regulations.
He sought to have the military lawyer removed from his case, a cause that garnered national attention after 11 former JAG lawyers filed a brief supporting him that ?argued “the government has crossed a perilous line.”
But Elkins sided with the government in finding ?that Congress had through two other laws created exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act that give the U.S. attorney general the authority to appoint JAG lawyers to prosecute civilians as special assistant U.S. attorneys.
Read full report
