2 weeks Ago By Rob Port
MINOT — Earlier this year, Attorney General Drew Wrigley lost a brutal debate over mandatory sentencing laws that saw the state's top law enforcement officer launching personal attacks against personnel from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The head of the DOCR, Colby Braun, is a member of Gov. Kelly Armstrong's cabinet.
The debate over mandatory sentencing seemed to become a proxy battle between Wrigley, a longtime advocate who has positioned himself as a champion of law enforcement interests, and Armstrong, who worked for more than a decade as a defense attorney. Wrigley's legislation, Senate Bill 2128, was defeated in the House, with many lawmakers expressing confusion over the conflicting narratives from Wrigley's office and the DOCR. Wrigley accused the DOCR of lying about things like recidivism rates, though Wrigley himself has made claims that aren't true.
He's painted a picture of North Dakota under siege from a spike in crime, but his office's crime data shows that the incident rate for the most serious crimes is flat, while the rate for less serious crimes is down. Wrigley has claimed that the DOCR is letting dangerous criminals out of incarceration too early, but the data shows that the state's incarceration rate is up 18% since 2006. Data also shows that the average sentence for inmates eligible for parole is up more than 14%, while the average amount of time served in DOCR facilities (not counting time in other facilities such as county jails) is up nearly 26%.
The cost of Wrigley's bill would have been enormous — putting more people in prison for longer means dramatically higher costs for the taxpayers — and the argument he made conflicted with the DOCR's narrative of the situation and the data produced by his own office. In that context, the Legislature, understandably, wasn't ready to make the investment, but they did authorize an inquiry into the matter. Senate Bill 2015, which is the DOCR's budget, authorizes a study into sentencing, corrections and parole oversight, including costs and recidivism trends.
The study is to include input from the judiciary, prosecutors, the DOCR and parole officials. Commissioning this study makes sense. If the attorney general and the governor's office can't agree on a set of facts around this issue, it's appropriate to study the matter and gather the pertinent information.
Wrigley, however, wants his own task force. One that would convene and do its work during the interim between the 2025 and 2027 legislative sessions, when Wrigley will be pursuing reelection. An amendment brought by Bismarck Republican Rep.
Mike Nathe to the conference committee for House Bill 1003, the budget for Wrigley's office, would authorize a task force to be stacked by Wrigley and his allies that would also study these issues. Per the amendment, Wrigley would chair the task force. Its membership would consist of: Five members appointed by Wrigley A police chief A sheriff A representative from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (which is a part of Wrigley's office) A representative from the DOCR A representative from the Burleigh County State's Attorney's office A representative from the state's attorney's association Two lawmakers Claire Ness, Wrigley's assistant attorney general, made the case for the amendment to the conference committee, suggesting, ironically, given how this proposed task force would be constituted, that the legislative study would be one-sided.
That's an exercise in projection. This task force is rank deck-stacking. Wrigley is seizing on the very real need to study this issue and establish an agreed-upon set of facts to create a task force that he and his allies would control.
Rather than a good-faith effort to bring clarity to this issue, this task force, duplicative as it is of the already-existing legislative study, aims to muddy the waters, I'm afraid. To be clear, input from Wrigley's office on this debate is important, but given the tone and tactics he's adopted throughout this debate, which stretches back to the 2023 legislative session, I don't think he can be trusted to gather the facts in good faith. Wrigley, unfortunately, has positioned himself as a belligerent in this debate, and has no business shaping and chairing a task force that aims to provide objective information to inform lawmakers.
I would hope that lawmakers defeat Wrigley's amendment and rely on their own study..
