Good and Pretti Evidence: DOJ Halts Sharing With Minnesota

Minnesota prosecutors say the Justice Department has stopped handing over the Good and Pretti evidence they need to decide whether to charge the federal officers who fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January. The department says sharing is its call alone, turning a stalled homicide review into a test of how far a state can investigate federal immigration officers who use deadly force.

The account comes from court filings in the lawsuit Minnesota brought against the Justice Department in March, reported Oct. 22 by the Associated Press and the Minnesota Star Tribune. According to those filings, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota told Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty on Sept. 10 that evidence sharing would be paused indefinitely “in light of challenges with D.C.” That reversed a summer in which, the AP reported, federal authorities had begun turning over body camera video and hard drives of statements. No one has been charged in either killing, the AP reported.

Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot by an ICE officer on Jan. 7, 2026 as she left a protest, according to the AP. Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, was killed by a federal officer about two weeks later after a confrontation with agents. Both deaths came during Operation Metro Surge, which the Star Tribune describes as a 10-week crackdown that sent about 4,000 federal agents to Minnesota. Federal officials said at the time that the officer who shot Good acted in self-defense, the AP reported.

The pieces Minnesota is still missing

The state says it still lacks the officers’ cell phones, recordings of key interviews, the firearms used on Pretti and a recorded statement from one officer who fired, according to the AP and Star Tribune. Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans said in a declaration that investigators have “never been able to view” those interview recordings, the Star Tribune reported. In a use-of-force case, the officer’s own account and phone records are often what let a prosecutor test a self-defense claim at all.

The Touhy argument and the loop it creates

In a reply filed this week, the AP reported, Justice Department lawyers argued that they have discretion to decline and cited the Touhy regulations, the rules at 28 C.F.R. 16.21 and following that govern when department records and employees may be produced for outside legal proceedings. They said no court case was active when Minnesota made its requests, and they have asked that the suit be dismissed, the Star Tribune reported. Minnesota’s filing counters that federal prosecutors “have identified no legal authority or rational basis justifying their obstruction of state criminal investigations,” according to the AP.

The department’s reading creates a loop. If the regulations apply only once a formal proceeding exists, a state reviewing a shooting before charges has little leverage, yet charging a homicide without the shooter’s statement and phone data is a thin foundation.

The rules take their name from the Supreme Court’s 1951 decision in United States ex rel. Touhy v. Ragen. These regulations—derived from the 1951 Supreme Court case United States ex rel. Touhy v. Ragen—grant federal agencies the power to restrict their employees from testifying or producing official documents in outside legal proceedings without explicit departmental approval. In the original 1951 case, an inmate named Roger Touhy sued his prison warden, Joseph E. Ragen, and subpoenaed an FBI agent for internal Department of Justice files to prove his conviction was fraudulent. Note that when a prisoner files a habeas corpus lawsuit arguing that their imprisonment is unconstitutional, the lawsuit is technically filed directly against the person holding them behind bars. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that subordinate federal employees could not be held in contempt for obeying agency orders to withhold records, establishing a powerful precedent that federal agencies still use today to control the flow of government information. Many federal courts review Touhy refusals under the Administrative Procedure Act’s arbitrary-and-capricious standard, which Minnesota’s “no rational basis” language appears aimed at.

Jurisdiction is the larger fight waiting behind it

The administration has suggested that state prosecutors lack jurisdiction to investigate federal officers, the AP reported. A federal officer prosecuted in state court can move the case to federal court under 28 U.S.C. 1442 and claim Supremacy Clause immunity, rooted in the Supreme Court’s 1890 decision in In re Neagle, which protects conduct authorized by federal law and necessary and proper to carry it out. The shield is not automatic. In 2001 the full Ninth Circuit allowed Idaho’s manslaughter case against an FBI sniper from the Ruby Ridge standoff to go forward, before a new county prosecutor dropped it.

The same phone records and interviews are what a federal judge would weigh in deciding whether an officer’s actions were necessary and proper. The Justice Department has said it is investigating Pretti’s killing, the Star Tribune reported; the coverage describes no comparable federal statement on the Good shooting. The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the pause.

The next move belongs to the judge in Minnesota’s lawsuit, who is being asked to order the evidence produced. A ruling for the state would give other states a path to investigate shootings during large federal deployments; a ruling for the department would leave such inquiries dependent on cooperation that, on Minnesota’s account, ended with a single notice.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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