Ramsey County Attorney's office is releasing an evaluation of its own operation

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi is pulling back the curtain in his office after releasing information about how they decide which cases to prosecute - and which cases they don't.

"In many ways, the work that we do sometimes can be kind of mysterious," said Choi who thinks this data-driven, self-examination is needed now more than ever.

"I think the public would assume that a crime's been committed, the police are called, and the prosecutor should prosecute everything that the police sends to them," Choi explains.

However, that is not how it works Choi said.

The report showed that from 2018 toi 2024, a little over 61% of cases were charged, with 38 declined. The most common reason for not prosecuting a case was not enough evidence.

The process, according to Ramsey County, looks like this:

An Assistant County Attorney reviews the case to determine whether charges are appropriate and if the case can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If not, the case is declined and sent back to the law enforcement agency, sometimes for further investigation. If so, the case will be charged and assigned to one of our prosecutors who will work with the investigators and victims and witnesses to prepare the case for trial.

The idea is that this kind of transparency helps to make the system more accurate and trustworthy.

Choi says a third party organization looked at the data and analyzed each case that came through their office.

"I mean, there's always racial disparity, sadly, in our in our justice systems," Choi added. "But, I think we're doing pretty good with regard to the differences between races. We're doing the best that we can and we continue to always be looking at that. Which is another important thing that we should be mindful of."

He called the report an important step forward in the county's ongoing dedication to fairness, accountably, and justice for everyone.