Transcripts

CATHERINE WINTER: Nancy Magnuson worked for two years as a criminal prosecutor until it was discovered that she wasn't a lawyer and she resigned. At her arraignment, Magnuson told the judge that she'd never been to law school and never taken a bar examination. Her former boss Jerry Hendrickson says Magnuson must have picked up her legal knowledge by working as a law clerk.

JERRY HENDRICKSON: She became adept at having law clerks do legal research for her because she was busy, or whatever else. So many of the things that you have to know to be a lawyer, she was somewhat able to avoid. But she was here for two years, saw how many of the procedures worked. Became familiar with the law, particularly in domestic abuse, and tried to spend a lot of time working on that. So she got the type of legal education that before law schools existed, all lawyers got. She got it by working with it.

CATHERINE WINTER: Magnuson's case is being heard by Judge James Campbell, who was appointed last month because she's practiced in front of the other Ramsey County judges. Campbell has arranged for the Hennepin County Probation Office to do a pre-sentence investigation. Campbell says pre-sentence investigations are relatively uncommon in misdemeanor cases. But he says he has no other way of assessing the harm Magnuson's posing as an attorney may have caused. Melvin Goldberg, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, says it's important for a prosecutor to have gone to law school so that a defendant's rights aren't violated.

MELVIN GOLDBERG: Lawyers who are prosecutors have certain ethical obligations that are imposed upon them as officers of the court that they understand. Their job is not to convict. Their job is to do justice.

And there are times when prosecutors dismiss cases. There are times when prosecutors are compelled by the law to reveal information to the defendant in order to provide a fair trial. And so, I suppose if you have a prosecutor who's not well-trained in the law, the defendant can suffer at the hands of the prosecutor.

CATHERINE WINTER: Many lawyers who worked with Magnuson say she generally did a good job. And Hendrickson says everyone was surprised to hear she wasn't a lawyer. But he says the incident has hurt the reputation of the Saint Paul City Attorney's Office.

JERRY HENDRICKSON: The public's confidence and trust in legal representation is an important matter. So much is tied up nowadays in the court system. So I think that's an important thing.

You look at Nancy's case. And on the one hand, the universe goes on. And it's-- there's no blood on the floor.

But yet, there's a lot of people personally that were hurt by it. The system looks bad, somewhat from that. And it does undermine the public's confidence in the-- especially the criminal justice system to a bit.

CATHERINE WINTER: Hendrickson says the city attorney's office is interviewing lawyers for three positions, and has asked all of them to show proof that they're licensed. Magnuson has refused to comment on the case. But her lawyer says she's found a new job as a law clerk for a private firm in Saint Paul. I'm Catherine Winter.