A federal judge has ordered the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office to send a written correction to everyone who received an ICE memo about federal public defender Matthew Deates. The notice must include the judge’s order and be sent within one week, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. The office had not immediately answered questions about whether it would comply, according to the paper.
The order followed Magistrate Judge David Schultz’s finding that the Justice Department violated Deates’s rights by circulating a false accusation without giving him a way to clear his name, the Star Tribune reported. Schultz found no reasonable suspicion that Deates had committed a crime and warned that prosecuting him would be improper, while acknowledging he could not prevent the Justice Department from bringing a case.
The memo, written by ICE Officer Michael O’Neal, accused Deates of helping an immigrant client evade arrest by accompanying him to a light-rail station after a hearing. The MPR News account said the judge had already released the client and allowed him to return to California. Deates and his attorney denied the accusation and sought a retraction, MPR News reported.
The memo became public after it was included in evidence sent to lawyers for 15 Minnesotans accused of coordinating to obstruct federal immigration officers during Operation Metro Surge. Deates was not connected to that case, the Star Tribune and MPR News reported. Lawyers for those defendants have said they may rely on the incident to support a selective-prosecution argument, the Star Tribune reported.
At a hearing after the memo became public, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tory Sailer called its inclusion in the evidence an oversight and said federal officials were not actively investigating Deates, according to the Star Tribune. Prosecutors said the memo did not represent the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s position but stopped short of acknowledging that its allegations were false. MPR News reported that prosecutors stated their position in a Sept. 25 filing and that Sailer said he personally did not believe Deates had committed a crime.
Deates’s attorney, Chris Madel, praised the ruling and urged the government to address the harm to his client, the Star Tribune reported. The ordered notice applies to people who received the memo; it is separate from the question of whether defendants in the other case can prove selective prosecution. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Armstrong, defendants must show discriminatory effect and purpose to establish such a claim, and provide credible evidence that similarly situated people were not prosecuted to obtain discovery.
Complaint referrals and disclosure rules
The DHS Office of Inspector General says hotline submissions are reviewed to determine whether an investigation or referral to another entity is warranted. A separate OIG review examined ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility Investigations Division from Oct. 11, 2017, through Apr. 18, 2018, and reported that ICE OPR referred 1,934 complaints to DHS OIG in fiscal 2016 and 2,136 in fiscal 2017. Those historical referral figures do not describe outcomes or relate to Deates’s case, according to the DHS OIG and its review. The Justice Department’s Justice Manual separately describes guidelines for prosecutors deciding what information to disclose to criminal defendants under Brady and Giglio. That policy statement alone does not establish a discovery violation in Deates’s matter, and the guidance on criminal-case disclosures is distinct from the court-ordered correction to people who received the memo, according to the Justice Manual.
Federal oversight of ICE complaints
The DHS Office of Inspector General says hotline submissions are reviewed to determine whether an investigation or referral to another entity is warranted. In a separate published review, the office examined ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility Investigations Division from Oct. 11, 2017, through Apr. 18, 2018. These records describe the complaint-review process and the scope of that review, but do not provide national totals or findings related to Deates.
