I was surprised to see that after three separate juries acquittedJames Hunter. The Crosby Police Lieutenant, who, was in charge of the investigation against Jim Hunter, suddenly resigned recently. His resignation is just one more occurrence which, in combination to everything else that has occurred in this case, demonstrates that the accusations against Mr. Hunter were based on politics and not facts.
The Crow Wing County Attorney refuses to admit any mistakes. After a two year plus investigation and prosecution that cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars in staff time and other costs, cost Mr. Hunter his reputation, and untold costs in lost business, the only regret of the County Attorney is that they lost three trials and Mr. Hunter was not convicted. Prosecution is not a game where the only win is a conviction. A win should be seeing justice done, whether that is convicting a guilty person, dismissing charges against an innocent person, or, simply not filing charges when no crime has been committed. Everyone makes mistakes, there is nothing wrong with filing charges, and then dismissing them when it becomes clear that a crime was not committed. The inability of our County Attorney to admit any mistake is troubling. Until we have anhonest accounting of what went wrong in the County Attorney’s Office, what happened to Mr. Hunter could happen to any of us.