Policy Advocacy

In the 2021 legislative session, Minnesota passed key legislation advocated for by the Great North Innocence Project that provides safeguards against unreliable jailhouse witness testimony. 

The law protects against false jailhouse witness testimony by: 

1. Tracking Jailhouse Witness Testimony: Each county attorney’s office annually reports a record of testimony of jailhouse witnesses against other suspects or defendants, whether or not that testimony is used at trial. The county attorneys also reports any explicit or implicit benefits that they offered or may offer in the future to the jailhouse witness. In addition, confidential information collected is accessible only by a county attorney. This provides prosecutors with better information before putting a potential witness on the stand. 
2. Disclosure of jailhouse witness testimony and deals struck: Prosecutors are required to disclose specific details about the involvement of the jailhouse witness including details of any deals, their criminal histories (including pending charges), other cases in which they may have testified in exchange for benefits, and whether the witness previously recanted their testimony. 
3. Notification to victims of the jailhouse witnesses’ crimes are required if the jailhouse witness receives or might receive leniency or other benefits in exchange for testimony.

Read the statute

In Minnesota, people who are exonerated after being wrongfully convicted can seek financial compensation through a two-part process.

Part 1: Determining Eligibility

First, the exoneree must file a petition in the same district court where they were convicted. The prosecutor’s office that handled the original case has 60 days to respond. The court decides whether the person qualifies as “exonerated” — meaning their conviction was overturned or dismissed on grounds consistent with innocence and no related felony charges remain. If the prosecutor agrees that the person deserves compensation, eligibility is automatically granted. If not, the court holds a hearing to rule on whether the petitioner can show they are factually innocent.

Part 2: Claiming Compensation

Once the court declares the person eligible, the compensation process has several steps:

1. Filing a claim: The exoneree files a claim with the Minnesota Supreme Court and names the state as the respondent. The claim must include the district court’s eligibility order.
2. State response: The state, represented by the Attorney General or Minnesota Management and Budget, has 60 days to respond to the compensation petition.
3. Compensation panel appointment: Within 30 days of filing, the chief justice appoints a three-member panel of experienced attorneys or judges to determine damages.
4. Settlement or hearing: The panel may hold a prehearing settlement conference to encourage a negotiated resolution. If the parties cannot settle, the panel conducts a public hearing to determine the compensation amount.
5. Award and payment: The panel issues a written award detailing the compensation owed. The Commissioner of Management and Budget forwards the award to the legislature, which must vote in favor of appropriating the compensation in a subsequent legislative session.

Compensation Amounts
Exonerees receive at least $50,000 for each year spent in prison and $25,000 for each year on supervised release or as a registered offender, plus compensation for physical and nonphysical (mental) injury, attorney fees, court costs, education expenses, lost wages, child support, medical bills, and other reintegration expenses and proven losses. There is no overall cap on total compensation.

Read the statute

In the 2020 legislative session, Minnesota passed a law, whose advocacy was led by the Great North Innocence Project, that requires all law enforcement agencies in the state to follow mandated best practices consistent with those recommended by the National Academy of Science. These are:

1. Blind/Blinded Administration: The officer administering the lineup is unaware of the suspect’s identity, or if that is not practical, the administrator is “blinded” using a technique such as the “folder shuffle method” for photo lineups that prevents him or her from seeing which lineup member is being viewed by the witness.
2. Instructions: Prior to the procedure, the witness should be instructed that the perpetrator may or may not be in the lineup.
3. Proper Use of “Non-Suspect” Fillers: Non-suspect “fillers” used in the lineup should match the witness’s description of the perpetrator.
4.  Confidence Statements: Immediately after an identification is made the eyewitness should provide a statement, in his or her own words, that articulates their level of confidence in the identification.

Eyewitness misidentification is a leading factor in wrongful convictions.

Read the statute

Before the amended statute was passed, Minnesota’s post-conviction statute of limitations included a strict two-year statute of limitations running from the date on which the conviction becomes final.

While the statute provided an exception for claims based on newly discovered evidence, the standard for invoking that exception, in many cases, was impossible to satisfy.

The new post-conviction statute advocated for by the Great North Innocence Project modified the language of the statute so as to allow for an exception to the two-year statute of limitations where a claim is based on newly discovered evidence. Based on this revised language, a petitioner now will:

• Still need to prove their case based on applicable substantive standards in order to get a conviction overturned, but they now at least get their day in court
• Not need to affirmatively prove their innocence merely to be able to pursue a post-conviction claim
• Get two years from the discovery of new evidence to bring their claim

Read the new statute.

Prior to the new statute’s passage, law enforcement in Minnesota was legally permitted to lie to juveniles during interrogations about evidence and promises of leniency. This change in statute, passed during the 2024 Minnesota legislative session, now makes it such that if law enforcement lies to juveniles during interrogation, any subsequent admission, confession, or statement is presumed inadmissible.

False confessions are a factor in roughly 13% of wrongful convictions.

Read the statute

Senate Bill No. 2376 directed the North Dakota Legislative Management to study how law enforcement agencies across the state record custodial interrogations (interviews with people who are in police custody) to determine whether North Dakota should adopt uniform statewide rules for recording them.

The goal of the study was to understand what current practices looked like and whether it would be practical and beneficial for every agency in the state to follow the same standards. To do that, the Legislative Management was asked to collect information from local and state law enforcement agencies about:

• Their policies on when and how interrogations were recorded;
• The equipment used for recording and whether it was audio, video, or both;
• Where and how long recordings were stored;
• How recordings were shared with defense attorneys and prosecutors during discovery;
• The types of cases that were most likely to be recorded and how often recording occurred; and
• Any challenges, such as cost, staffing, or technology, that could make uniform recording difficult to implement.

The study also looked at best practices and model laws from other states, including the Uniform Electronic Recordation of Custodial Interrogations Act, which many states had adopted to promote accuracy and fairness in criminal investigations. In addition, the Legislative Management was tasked with examining the financial costs of recording equipment, training, and data storage, as well as any potential benefits, such as reducing disputes over what happened during an interrogation.

The Legislative Management could work with the North Dakota Commission on Uniform State Laws to analyze these issues and was required to report its findings and any recommended legislation to the Legislative Assembly. The purpose of the study was to help lawmakers decide whether North Dakota should adopt a consistent, transparent, and reliable system for recording custodial interrogations across all law enforcement agencies.