Susan Gaertner
Susan Gaertner is definitely a Type A, the classification that psychologists say denotes a driven achiever.
She is the first woman county attorney of Ramsey County, Minnesota, which includes the state’s capital city, St. Paul. She supervises a staff of 312, including 68 attorneys. She is currently in her third term and was re-elected last November without opposition for the first time.
She’s an experienced trial attorney and hones her skills, usually every year, by personally trying every type of case, from misdemeanors to felonies, often including high-profile homicides.
She’s a recognized expert in DNA evidence and is co-author of the NDAA policy statement on the subject. She’s also an authority on environmental law.
She has introduced innovative programs on truancy intervention, gang prosecution and domestic abuse.
She’s a member of the NDAA Board of Directors and co-chair of the Cyber Crime Committee.
She’s a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota-Duluth, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science, and she’s a cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School, where she was selected for the Minnesota Law Review and the prestigious Order of the Coif.
After graduation from the University of Minnesota, Gaertner persuaded the university law school to defer her starting date for a year, which she spent bicycling around Europe “because I wanted one more big adventure before I became an adult.” She adds, “It was a good decision, because I haven’t had much free time since.”
A native of St. Paul, she was inducted last year into her high school’s (Harding High) Hall of Fame, edging out, rumor has it, the mayor.
But she’s not perfect … yet. As one publication put it, she still has one summit to climb: having her photo added to the gallery that lines the south hall of the Lexington Restaurant in St. Paul, a favorite of the city’s Old Guard and power people. When your photo adorns that gallery, it signifies that you’re a certified St. Paul notable and achiever who has made a difference in the city. Based on her track record, it’s likely her photo will eventually be there. “We’re working on it,” she says. “There are some women up there—not a lot, but some.”
After receiving her law degree, Gaertner was hired as an assistant county attorney by then County Attorney Tom Foley, with the understanding that she would stay for at least two years. But she stayed on beyond that period because, as she explains, “I quickly discovered that being a prosecutor is the best job in the world. I loved trying cases, and I loved working with victims and achieving a measure of justice for them.”
In 1989 she became the first prosecutor in Minnesota to present DNA evidence in a trial. The victim was a young woman who was raped, strangled and left in a snow bank on a quiet suburban street. Gaertner says, “There were two brothers who had had contact with the victim at a social event. We wanted to eliminate the brother who we thought was not involved, and conventional blood-typing would not do that. So we did DNA testing and it linked the defendant (one of the brothers) to the crime. It was very crucial evidence. He was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life. It was one of those cases you never forget.”
|
The Ultimate Domestic Violence Case
|
|
Asked what she considers the most memorable case she personally prosecuted, Ramsey County (Minnesota) Attorney Susan Gaertner replies, “To some extent, the most recent case you have tried is the one you remember most vividly, but even aside from that factor, I would say it was a domestic homicide I tried last year. It was really eye-opening and very, very brutal. It was in many ways the ultimate domestic violence case.
“The woman victim had been abused since the early days of her 26-year marriage and on the day the autopsy was conducted, our coroner couldn’t even enumerate her bruises and other injuries because there were simply so many that he couldn’t count them. She was basically tortured to death. It was horrifying.
“Her husband was convicted of first-degree murder under a domestic homicide statute and is serving a life sentence.
“You never forget a case like that.”
|
In 1994, after Tom Foley retired, Gaertner ran for the top job, was elected and wasted no time placing her imprimatur on the office. She instituted what she called a Three Strikes Against Crimes program. The three “strikes” represent prevention, intervention and detention.
Under prevention of crime Gaertner includes vigorous child support enforcement, for which her office has gained recognition beyond Minnesota. “I set out,” she says, “to enhance the collection of child support not only as a quality-of-life issue, but also as a crime prevention issue, because of the link between a life of poverty and becoming a criminal.” Unlike the 86 other county attorneys’ offices, which provide only legal services for the welfare agencies that actually collect the support, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office has responsibility for collection and enforcement, as well as legal services.
On intervention, Gaertner established in 1995 what studies have shown to be a very successful truancy program modeled after the program established by former Los Angeles DA Gil Garcetti. “Our theory,” she says,”is to intervene early with kids who are skipping school, which can lead to progressive problems down the line. We want to nip that in the bud and focus on truancy, because such behavior in school is an important predictor of criminal behavior.”
The detention aspect of the Three Strikes program focuses on vigorous prosecution of gun violence, with a specialized Gangs and Guns Unit “keeping the pressure on,” as Gaertner puts it.
Gaertner has three daughters. The eldest, 21, is a junior at American University in Washington, DC; another, 15, is in high school; and the youngest, 12, is in middle school. So, in what Gaertner calls “my second shift” she says, “I’m still doing soccer practice, Girl Scouts, coaching mock trial teams and going to debate tournaments—my high school daughter is on her high school debate team. And my youngest daughter has started doing cross-country track, and we throw that in the mix.” Gaertner is married to John Wodele, who was press secretary for former Governor Jesse Ventura and presently hosts a radio talk show in the Twin Cities.
In her close to two decades as a prosecutor, Susan Gaertner has learned that there are risks as well as rewards in her job. “I’ve had my tires slashed,” she reports, “and my life threatened and I certainly am not unusual in that regard. I think that every one of us (prosecutors) understands that our personal safety is one of the risks we take in our jobs.”
Nevertheless, she declares, “I still think, after all these years that it’s the best job in the world, or at least one of the best. Public service is so important and gratifying and like many of my colleagues I feel that in this job I really can make a difference and make my community a better place. I feel very strongly—and I don’t know who said it first, but I believe it—that I need to be ready every day to make a decision that will cost me my career. You have to be prepared to conduct yourself that way or you’d go crazy. You have to remember that it’s the nature of this job.
|
