MOORHEAD, Minn. (KFGO) – Moorhead-based attorneys share why they believe former judge Amber Gustafson defeated incumbent Brian Melton in the election for Clay County Attorney.
Melton pulled his office out of the county’s drug court where defendants can get treatment rather than possibly being sentenced to prison. He said participants were often reoffending multiple times.
“I just don’t think we as a society are up anymore for a purely punitive you never get a second chance, I’m never even going to look at it approach,” Attorney Dane DeKrey said on “Afternoons Live”. “To just say I’m not going to participate at all, that’s no longer going to fly. At least on this side of the river for how criminal justice is done.”
The amount of cases dismissed by Clay County under Melton’s leadership was a discussion in the race.
“When there’s a higher not guilty rate than other similarly situated counties, they’re either not trying good cases, or they’re not being good prosecutors, you’re not being good trial lawyers.” Attorney Bruce Ringstrom, Jr said. “A good and reasonable prosecutor will get rid of marginal cases.”
Ringstrom and DeKrey try cases against the Clay County Attorney’s Office.
On Facebook, Melton congratulated Gustafson on her victory.
“The chief prosecutor of a county must do more than look at statistics and draw conclusions,” Melton wrote on his page on October 30. “The job requires examining the facts, understanding the evidence and considering the circumstances behind the numbers.”
Melton has served as Clay County Attorney for 20 years.
