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I wasn't sure what to expect from a group of Democratic state AGs, but I definitely was not expecting a long monologue about Ruby Ridge and the Boston Massacre www.theverge.com/policy/86588...
Just before the town hall, a reporter asked Ellison about the difficulty states faced in prosecuting federal agents like the ICE agent who shot Renee Good. “The idea that they’re absolutely immune is a misstatement of the law, and it is a dangerous misstatement of the law, because I don’t want any ICE agent or Border Patrol agent or any agent to think that they can just kill people and then that’s it,” Ellison told the group of reporters. Then he asked rhetorically: “What about Ruby Ridge? You ever heard of that one?” Years after an FBI sniper shot Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge, the state of Idaho prosecuted the federal agent. The federal government went to bat for the agent, claiming that he was immune under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The Ninth Circuit ruled that Idaho was allowed to prosecute the sniper — similarly, Minnesota is also entitled to investigate and potentially prosecute the officer who shot Renee Good. But a different example loomed larger in Ellison’s mind: the Boston Massacre of 1770, where British soldiers shot into a crowd, ultimately killing five people. “It’s not exactly analogous, but we are talking about local authorities in Boston, prosecuting imperial agents of the colonial power, the central government, in England. And they were prosecuted. Two of them were convicted. John Adams actually represented a few of the imperial officers.” The Boston Massacre, said Ellison, was obviously “in the mind of the framers of the Constitution” at the time the document was written. “They were thinking about this event, and they would have never conceded the state’s authority to prosecute a federal officer,” said Ellison, going on to add, “The states of the United States pre-date the United States. It is federal courts that are limited. Not state courts. State courts have plenary power.” He finished with a dramatic flourish: “It’s true that the feds are denying us access to the investigative file. It’s also true that there’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
January 22, 2026 at 7:58 PM