There is No Remedy For Prison Sending Detainer Request to Incorrect Prosecutor; and Incorrect Prosecutor Has No Obligation Either to Send Detainer Request to Correct Prosecutor or Return It to The Prison

Resendiz v. State, Minn.Ct.App., 6/10/2013.  While Mr. Resendiz was serving an unrelated prison sentence, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office charged  him with first degree assault.  Mr. Resendiz requested final disposition of the assault charge by completing the requisite form, on which he correctly identified the Hennepin County Attorney as the prosecutor.  The prison, however, sent the request to the Minneapolis City Attorney’s Office, who ignored it.  Eight months later the Hennepin County Attorney learned of the request.

Mr. Resendiz then came to court and pled guilty, receiving a concurrent sentence.  Later, he filed this post conviction petition saying that his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel by not asserting his rights under the detainer statute.  The post conviction court denied the petition, saying that the prison was negligent at most and that the city attorney’s office hadn’t violated any affirmative duty to forward the request through the tunnel from City Hall up to the County Attorney’s Office in the government center.

The court of appeals concludes that sending the request to the wrong prosecutor was good enough for government work.  This is because the detainer statute provides for no remedy for this cock up.  Rather, the statue provides a remedy in only two instances:  when the prisoner is not brought to trial within six months after the court and the (correct) prosecutor receive the request; and when the prison fails tell the inmate about the new charge and his right to request final disposition.

Now, over at the city attorney’s office, the court says that they can ignore the request on the form asking that if the form had not got to the correct prosecutor would you please designate the proper agency on the form and send it back to the prison.  They can ignore this because there is nothing in the detainer statute that imposes this onerous burden upon them.  They can hang on to one of their forever first class stamps.

So, since no one – Mr. Resendiz, the prison, the county attorney, the city attorney – did anything wrong, counsel could not have been ineffective for not raising the detainer statute.  Way to step up everybody.