Case: In re. United States of America

After a protest at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 18, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a criminal complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, on January 20, 2026, seeking to arrest 8 protestors and charge them with violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, 18 U.S.C. § 248, and conspiracy to violate rights, 18 U.S.C. § 241.  [Case No. 0:26-mj-00040.].  That same day, the duty magistrate judge, Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko, found that the complaint supported a finding of probable cause as to the § 241 charges against three of the eight defendants only; finding no probable cause to support charges against the remaining five defendants, he did not issue warrants for their arrest.  The next day, Judge Micko indicated that he was unwilling to review additional evidence on an expedited basis and instead directed the government to seek a grand jury indictment.   

The United States requested that a District Court judge review the magistrate judge's decision; Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz was assigned to consider the request. On Wednesday, January 21, Chief Judge Schiltz informed the government that because their request was "unprecedented" and because his colleagues had "strong and differing views" on how to respond, he would defer decision until after a bench meeting with his colleagues, scheduled for the following day.  He invited the government to submit a brief providing authority for their request in the meantime. Ultimately, the bench meeting was postponed, due to security concerns, until January 27. 

On January 23, 2026, the United States filed an emergency petition for a writ of mandamus or issuance of arrest warrants with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, asking that court to find that the criminal complaint established probable cause to find violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 248(a)(2), and to order the district court to sign the remaining arrest warrants or, in the alternative, to itself issue the arrest warrants. [Case No. 26-1135]. The petition was filed under seal, and Chief Judge Schiltz was "invited to file a response," but had to do so without knowledge or service of the petition nor the ability to access it or any related documents in light of the seal. Chief Judge Schiltz responded in the form of two letters, both submitted on January 23, 2026; the first, to Chief Judge Steven M. Colloton of the Eighth Circuit, and the second to Susan E. Bindler, the Eighth Circuit's Clerk of Court.  In the letters, Chief Judge Schiltz rejected the government's contention that there is a "national-security emergency" warranting the requested relief, noting that none of the people the government seeks to arrest committed acts of violence and that two were not even protestors at all but instead a journalist and his producer, and explaining that the government could have sought indictments from a grand jury but chose not to, insisting, instead, that Chief Judge Schiltz "do something that, as best as I can tell, no district judge in the history of the Eighth Circuit has done." Ultimately, on January 23, 2026, the Eighth Circuit summarily denied the government's request for relief.