Prof. Sam Merchant Interviewed by The Minnesota Daily About Loss of Goodwill Between Local Courts and U.S. Attorney’s Office

Professor Sam Merchant was interviewed for an opinion piece in The Minnesota Daily about the chaos in the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office stemming from numerous resignations of attorneys and the influx of cases due to Operation Metro Surge. Most recently, contempt of court hearings took place as a result of the federal government’s failure to return the property of unlawfully detained immigrants in dozens of cases. According to Prof. Merchant, the legal battles between local courts and the federal prosecutors is one of the most unusual and disturbing things that can happen and that lawyers working for the federal government usually attempt to build goodwill with federal courts, to build credibility and work toward their common goal. He said, “Any threats to that goodwill are highly unusual, and it’ll take years, if not decades, to rebuild that in these districts because judges can’t take the United States at their word.”