Critics say Duluth judicial candidate fought improvements to domestic violence work as city attorney

DULUTH – A candidate running for a rare opening in northeast Minnesota’s Sixth Judicial District allegedly pushed back on a victim advocate position — which was to be paid for with grants — and work on a domestic violence response program when he led Duluth’s City Attorney’s Office.

A former colleague and the head of a Minnesota crime nonprofit that helped administer the grant said Gunnar Johnson told them he didn’t want to add another person to the office in 2018 when federal money was available to fill the role.

Johnson said in a recent Duluth News Tribune story that he had pushed city prosecutors for better domestic violence outcomes as city attorney. And in a 2018 story in the same newspaper, he said the work of the victim advocate, who was ultimately hired, had made “a huge difference.”

However, Minnesota Alliance on Crime executive director Bobbi Holtberg said this week that when she reached out to Johnson by phone seven years ago to explain the position and the likelihood the city would be awarded funding, he wasn’t interested.

“He kind of cut me off and said, ‘we’re fine. We use administrative staff; I’m not interested in having one more person or thing to manage,’” Holtberg said, noting he was “dismissive and condescending.”

Victim advocates typically communicate with victims of crime — largely domestic violence — and guide them through the legal process. At the time, it had been several years since the City Attorney’s Office had someone in that role. Holtberg said it was unusual for a city the size of Duluth, typically with high domestic violence caseloads, to be without one, especially considering it is where the Duluth Model, an internationally known victim-centered method for domestic assault response, originated.

A News Tribune review of more than 400 completed misdemeanor domestic assault cases between 2015 and 2017 showed nearly two-thirds of the people the city prosecuted for that crime received unsupervised probation, if any punishment at all.

Johnson served as city attorney for 12 years before his 2020 resignation amid an investigation into his treatment of employees that found he “made inappropriate statements” at work, including that he would “work you like sled dogs until someone can’t make it any further and then we will move on.”

Johnson said this week he felt a victim advocate position was important but needed to “ask the hard questions” first.

“You have to be careful of what you take on” when potentially adding employees, he said, and consider potential future budget cuts. “I explore all options before jumping into something, and that’s what we did with that position.”

After Holtberg’s phone call with Johnson, she said she sought advice from others and brought the opportunity and Johnson’s initial response to former Mayor Emily Larson. Larson confirmed this week that she then directed Johnson to apply for the grant. Funding was awarded to the city, and the position remains grant-funded today. Johnson said he doesn’t think Larson told him to apply, but said her administration was part of the discussion.

“We got it done, and we got it done in a way that’s stuck with the city,” he said. “Just because you ask hard questions doesn’t mean that it’s bad. … That’s what I do, and as judge I’ll ask hard questions.”

Retired city prosecutor Mary Asmus said recently that Johnson told her at the time that if that position was added, he would probably need to dismiss someone from the office’s criminal division. This was at a time when criminal caseloads were high, she said. Johnson said he doesn’t recall saying that, but noted that grant funding isn’t guaranteed to last, inevitably affecting budgets and staffing.

“I don’t think he understood the importance of a victim services coordinator to the prosecution of a domestic violence case,” Asmus said, and “he was the first Duluth City Attorney in four decades who had never prosecuted criminal cases for our office.”

Johnson, facing Shawn Reed for the judgeship, is in private practice at Overom Law. As an assistant Minnesota attorney general, he was legal counsel for the Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation and its board. He has also served as city attorney for Hermantown.

Asmus also said Johnson was reluctant in 2014 to sign off on an application for a continuation grant for the Blueprint for Safety, a St. Paul-founded program. It’s a model that links criminal justice agencies together coherently when it comes to domestic violence intervention.

Johnson ordered her to sign the document, Asmus said, telling her that if something went wrong, he could blame her.

Johnson said he doesn’t recall saying that, but the Blueprint issue was another case of wanting to first evaluate whether it was the right move, he said.

In a Blueprint for Safety policy draft put together by Scott Miller of the Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs Johnson crossed out supervisory responsibilities that had been assigned to him, Asmus said.

These responsibilities were considered best practices for an agency head in assuring the effectiveness of their domestic violence intervention work, she said.

Miller declined to comment, but confirmed that Johnson crossed those items out.