The case has been assigned to Senior Federal District Court Judge Paul A. Magnuson.

Judge Magnuson was appointed to the Court — by Pres. Reagan in 1981. He turned 84 in February and is reported online as having an active caseload.

In my experience, many federal judges quit handling criminal trials when they assume Senior Status, as they are able to limit the types and amount of work they do at that stage.

The Senior Status judges who continue to take criminal cases do so because they enjoy the criminal trial process. I suspect that in his 40 years on the bench Judge Magnuson has presided over hundreds of criminal jury trials.

We won’t have cameras in the courtroom this time, and this case might move quite fast. A federal defendant has a statutory right to go to trial within 70 days of his initial appearance. Given that the state trial just ended, and the defense has that transcript to work from in terms of the facts and witnesses likely to testify, it might make sense for the defense to push the matter to the earliest possible trial date.

I’ll have another story soon taking a closer look at these and other issues.

But very little about what DOJ did today makes sense to me. I think it has the potential to cause problems in a variety of ways.

Did the Minnesota Attorney General request DOJ to charge the three officers who haven’t gone to trial yet? Will the Minnesota AG drop that case out of fear of maybe losing it??

Hmmm.