North Dakota
North Dakota bill requiring inmates to serve 85% of prison time draws heated, lengthy debate
BISMARCK — A North Dakota bill that would ensure defendants serve at least 85% of their sentences drew hours of impassioned testimony and debate over whether it would deter crime and promote public safety or simply crowd prisons at a high cost.
Over the course of several hours, the North Dakota Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony Tuesday, Jan. 21, and Wednesday for and against
Senate Bill 2128.
Attorney General Drew Wrigley
proposed the legislation,
which would require offenders to serve 85% of their sentence before they qualify for release, also known as “truth in sentencing.”
It also would ensure sentences for resisting arrest, simple assault on a peace officer and fleeing are served on top of other crimes. The minimum sentence for resisting arrest would be 14 days in jail, while assault and fleeing would get at least 30 days.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
The bill is Wrigley’s
second attempt in as many legislative sessions
to set minimum sentences. Language has been cut back from the bill in 2023, which went through a whirlwind of changes before its ultimate defeat.
The main difference is the 85% rule, which Wrigley said would create across-the-board reform.
“Senate Bill 2128 offers you the opportunity to right this wrong, which has evolved over years, and to bring truth to sentencing transparency,” he said.
Testimony got lengthy and heated, mostly on Wednesday when opponents of the bill spoke. Studies suggest minimum and truth in sentencing laws do little to reduce crime.
“It’s just a failed policy,” said Travis Finck, executive director for the North Dakota Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigents.
It’s unclear how much the bill will cost, as amendments are expected to reduce initial estimates.
The bill would eliminate parole eligibility for every North Dakota prisoner, said North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Director Colby Braun. Only those who do not get early release for good behavior and exceed 85% would qualify, he said.
“It ignores research and places the fiscal burden on taxpayers by focusing solely on prison capacity while eliminating reentry opportunities for most adults in custody,” Braun said.
Time not served behind bars
Crime has increased over the years, Wrigley said in arguing that his bill would hold those who confront law enforcement accountable. Fleeing, resisting and assault on officers often is served concurrently with other offenses, he said.
“It is a freebie, and it is a slap in the face to every man and woman who wears a uniform in this state that has watched misconduct toward them increase over the last decade or more,” Wrigley said. “All our legislation asks is for that to not be a freebie.”
The North Dakota Chiefs of Police Association and North Dakota Peace Officers Association supported the bill.
Bismarck Police Deputy Chief Jason Stugelmeyer said he has noticed a dramatic increase in officer assaults since 2020. He said the streets are more violent than when he started policing 24 years ago because people are not afraid to confront officers.
Darren Gibbins / The Bismarck Tribune
“Thank God, it’s not serious most of the time, but it’s crazy,” he said. “I sometimes hear we can’t arrest our way out of it, and maybe some of that is true, but we need a deterrent.”
Fleeing law enforcement also has increased significantly, Stugelmeyer said.
Finck noted Bismarck has a limited chase policy. Defendants know if they flee at a high rate of speed, police will terminate the chase in some instances, he said.
That suggests suspects flee because they think they will not get caught, not because they know they will not be punished.
The public thinks there is “truth in sentencing,” but defendants are serving a fraction of their punishments behind bars, Wrigley said.
“There is precious little predictability,” he said. “Forget about truth in sentencing.”
Truth in sentencing is needed to ensure punishments are being served, Assistant Burleigh County State’s Attorney Dennis Ingold said. Among several examples, he noted that a defendant he prosecuted got a two-year sentence for bringing drugs from Michigan to North Dakota.
The defendant only served 55 days behind bars, Ingold said. That included 20 days in jail the defendant served while awaiting sentencing, the prosecutor said. The defendant spent 35 days in prison before being moved to a halfway house, Ingold noted.
Brad Nygaard / The Bismarck Tribune
“If you look at true days served, that’s 7.5%,” Ingold said.
The DOCR would count the amount of time served as 50%, since he served six months in the halfway house plus early release time for good behavior, Ingold said.
“I know the argument is going to be that these are outliers, but these are real cases,” he said.
Data from the DOCR suggests the average time an inmate serves at one of its facilities is 50%, but that includes prison and transitional centers.
Early releases happen because North Dakota does not have a minimum standard for how much time must be spent behind bars, Ingold said.
“From a prosecutor’s perspective, we are using up a lot of resources prosecuting people who are still subject to DOCR sentences at the time that we encounter them,” he said.
Transitional facilities are used to integrate inmates back into society before fully being released from custody. People can leave for several hours, but they have to come back to custody, Finck said.
Inmates at the Bismarck Transition Center have to have a job, Administrator Kevin Arthaud said. About 100 people at the facility are inmates, while roughly 20 are on parole, he said.
“We are trying to make people ready for release,” he said.
There is structure at the facility with few walk-aways, or escapes, Arthaud said. SB 2128 would eliminate opportunities for inmates to use the center to prepare for society, he said. That means the facility likely would shut down, and local businesses who employ center inmates would lose those workers, he said.
Minimum mandatory sentencing laws do not reduce crime or recidivism, said Andrew Myer, a criminal justice professor at the University of Cincinnati Corrections Institute.
“For deterrence to work, we need three things to happen,” he said. “We need certainty, which means that the person will be arrested or caught for their crimes, we need celerity, that the punishment will happen quickly, and we need severity, that the punishment is at an appropriate level.”
He said minimum sentencing laws are costly and impact prison safety. Studies show that individuals serving time with minimum mandatory punishments have more disciplinary infractions in prisons, Myer said.
Minimum sentencing laws also can lead to overcrowding, which can put inmates and correctional workers in danger, he said. State prisons and local jails have been
pushed to their capacity limits,
and opponents of SB 2128 said the proposed legislation would create more inmates, as well as force them to stay longer.
Multiple groups, including out-of-state organizations, testified against the bill. That included the North Dakota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Prison Fellowship from Lansdowne, Virginia, and the Due Process Institute of Washington, D.C. Several cited increased costs to both the prison and judicial systems.
“What about the cost to the public?” said Sen. Janne Myrdal, R-Edinburg, adding she is concerned about the safety of her constituents.
Transitional and treatment centers have helped give felons second chances and opportunities to reinvent themselves, F5 Project CEO and founder Adam Martin said. He himself benefited from such programs when he was convicted of crimes.
“Based on the philosophy of truth in sentencing, I should have never gotten it,” he said, adding he would have served lengthy prison sentences.
Anna Paige / The Forum
Instead, he has never been to prison. He started an organization that helps people who struggle with incarceration, and Martin ultimately
was pardoned of his crimes in North Dakota.
The F5 Project has helped more than 40,000 people, he said.
Had he gone to prison, he believes he would not have gotten those opportunities, Martin said. Blanketing sentences will not benefit anyone, he said.
“I do believe what the speaker earlier said about mercy and grace. It works,” Martin said.
BRECKENRIDGE — Coaches, teammates, friends and family gathered in the south parking lot of Breckenridge High School for another state tournament sendoff.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
This year, it was Troy Berndt taking the ceremonial convertible ride. He is headed to St. Michael-Albertville High School for the Minnesota Class A State Track and Field Meet on June 4-6.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
He will be running in the third heat of the 400-meter prelims, scheduled for 4:52 p.m. June 4. There are seven athletes in each heat, 21 total, and nine will advance to the finals at 6:20 p.m. June 5.
The top two finishers in each heat advance, along with the next three best times. Berndt’s personal best time of 50.67 has him seeded 13th, but the 10th-, 11th- and 12th-seeded runners are less than five hundredths of a second ahead of him. The eighth- and ninth-seeded runners are also close, at 50.33 and 50.39, respectively.
Berndt dropped nearly seven-tenths of a second from his previous personal best at the Section 6A West Subsection Meet on May 21, running 51.35, and shaved another 0.68 seconds off at the Section 6A Championships on May 28 with a time of 50.67. If he keeps lowering his time, he will have a shot at reaching the podium against the best runners in Class A.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
Results and photos will be available online immediately following the race June 4 and in the June 10 print edition of the Wahpeton Daily News.
Corbin Lee is a sports reporter for the Wahpeton Daily News and Richland County News-Monitor. Corbin can be reached by calling (701) 291-3551 or emailing corbin.lee@wahpetondailynews.com.
On this day in 1971, Rugby repeated as North Dakota’s high school sand greens golf champion behind medalist Dwight Stempson’s winning performance.
Here is the complete story as it appeared in the paper that day:
Rugby Repeats As Sand Greens Golf Champion
RUGBY, N. D. — Rugby repeated as North Dakota high school sand greens golf champion here Wednesday, posting a four-man total of 293 strokes for 18 holes.
Led by medalist Dwight Stempson’s medalist 36-35 — 71, the Panthers were eight strokes ahead of runnerup Stanley, which had a 301. Following were Garrison 311, Beulah 315, Leeds 322, Ashley 323, Bottineau 328, Pembina 329, Tioga 332, Parshall 341 and Hettinger 342.
Stempson and teammate Bruce Carlson each had one-under par 71s, but Carlson was unable to be at the regional and wasn’t qualified for individual honors.
Rounding out the Rugby totals were Delwin Wilson 40-37 — 77 and Dennett Hutchinson 35-39 — 74. Gary Kirchoffner, 41-39 — 80, was Rugby’s fifth entrant with the best four-of-five scores counted.
Runnerup Stanley was led by Steve Springan’s 34-38 — 72 and Joe Springan’s 36-38 — 74. Their two-man total of 146 strokes was good enough for the doubles title. Two strokes back with a 148 was the duo of Stempson and Wilson. Stan Saathoff and Mike Stepina of Garrison each had 76s for a 152 total and the Ashley combo of Steve Maier (76) and Dave Kretschmar (78) was fourth with a 154.
Stempson was the driving contest winner with a distance of 280 yards. Chris Knutson of Garrison headed the pitch and putt competition.
Kate Almquist is the social media manager for InForum. After working as an intern, she joined The Forum full time starting in January 2022. Readers can reach her at kalmquist@forumcomm.com.
Walhalla keeps the oldest buildings in North Dakota, fur-trade posts from the 1840s still standing near the Canadian line. Medora sits out in the Badlands, where a French aristocrat tried to build a beef empire in 1883. Garrison fishes one of the largest reservoirs in the country, and Jud has turned nearly every wall in town into a mural. The frontier era left marks across North Dakota that most of the Plains has paved over, and these ten towns still carry them. Each one holds a specific piece of the state’s history and geography.
Garrison
Garrison sits on the north shore of Lake Sakakawea, the reservoir the Garrison Dam holds back on the Missouri River and one of the largest reservoirs in the country. Anglers come year-round for walleye, northern pike, and chinook salmon, and the lake also draws boaters, campers, and shoreline hikers. In town, the open-air Heritage Park Museum preserves a one-room schoolhouse, a railroad depot, a country church, and a homesteader cabin from the turn of the last century. Fort Stevenson State Park, three miles southwest, marks the site of an 1860s military post with an interpretive guardhouse, a marina, a campground, and lakeside trails. Garrison leans into its self-declared title as the Walleye Capital of North Dakota with Wally the Walleye, a 26-foot fiberglass fish on Main Street.
Mayville
Mayville State University anchors this Red River Valley town in Traill County. The public four-year college opened in 1889 as one of the six original state normal schools authorized at North Dakota statehood, and its calendar still drives the town through Comet athletics, theater productions, and the annual Festival of Trees. Island Park, set along the Goose River where it runs through downtown, holds the town’s main recreation space with picnic areas, playgrounds, and a community pool. The volunteer-tended Rainbow Garden along the riverbank mixes themed plantings with folk-art sculptures. The Mayville Water Park runs its pool and slides from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Lisbon
Lisbon grew up along the Sheyenne River in Ransom County as a Northern Pacific Railroad town, and its 1889 Opera House, now restored and on the National Register, still hosts theater and music. Brick storefronts from the same era line Main Street. Just south of town, the Sheyenne National Grassland protects 70,000 acres of tallgrass prairie, the largest publicly owned tallgrass prairie in the country, with trails open to hikers, riders, and limited hunting. Prairiewood Vineyard, about six miles out, grows cold-climate grapes and pours tastings on weekends.
Fort Ransom
Fewer than 100 people live in Fort Ransom year-round, deep in the wooded Sheyenne River Valley. Fort Ransom State Park preserves the site of an 1867 Army outpost built to guard settlers and the wagon route toward the Black Hills, and it now offers camping, paddling on the Sheyenne, and cross-country skiing. The park’s Sodbuster Days each September run horse-powered farming, threshing, and traditional-craft demonstrations, and the Sheyenne Valley Arts and Crafts Festival fills it over the Fourth of July weekend. The town anchors the Sheyenne River Valley Scenic Byway, a 63-mile route through some of the most varied terrain in the state.
Devils Lake
Devils Lake takes its name from the Dakota “Mni Wak’áŋ,” or Spirit Water, and sits beside the largest natural lake in North Dakota. Between 1993 and 2011, floodwaters more than doubled the lake, swelling it from roughly 70 square miles to over 200 and swallowing roads, farms, and woodland as it rose. Today it holds one of the most productive perch and walleye fisheries in the Upper Midwest. Graham’s Island State Park, on the western shore, is the main access point, with cabins, a campground, a swimming beach, and boat ramps. Fort Totten State Historic Site nearby preserves an 1867 military post with sixteen original buildings restored to tell its story through 1890.
Medora
Medora is the gateway to the south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, set in the Badlands of western North Dakota. The Marquis de Mores, a French aristocrat, founded the town in 1883 and named it for his American wife, Medora von Hoffman; his Chateau de Mores hunting lodge still stands as a state historic site with the family’s original furnishings. The Maltese Cross Cabin, near the park visitor center, is the cabin Theodore Roosevelt used during his 1880s ranching years, the period that shaped his later conservation work. Each summer the Burning Hills Amphitheatre stages the Medora Musical, a Western-themed show running since 1965 in a natural bluff theater over the Badlands. The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame keeps permanent exhibits on ranching, rodeo, and Indigenous horse culture.
Walhalla
Walhalla, founded in 1845 on the banks of the Pembina River, is among the oldest towns in North Dakota. The Kittson Trading Post, built by American Fur Company agent Norman Kittson, stands at the Walhalla State Historic Site and is often called the oldest building in the state; the nearby Gingras Trading Post, the 1840s home and store of Métis trader Antoine Blanc Gingras, holds an equal or older claim. Pembina Gorge State Recreation Area cuts the deepest canyon in North Dakota, carved by the Pembina River, with trails for hiking, biking, and ATVs. Frost Fire Mountain runs downhill skiing and snowboarding in winter and an outdoor theater season in summer.
Valley City
Valley City earns its nickname, the City of Bridges, from the eleven bridges that cross the Sheyenne River and its tributaries within the city limits. The Hi-Line Railroad Bridge, finished in 1908 and listed on the National Register, runs 3,860 feet across the valley and stands 162 feet above the water, one of the longest single-track railroad bridges in the country. The town sits at the eastern end of the 63-mile Sheyenne River Valley Scenic Byway, and Valley City State University, founded in 1890, keeps the local calendar busy with Vikings athletics and the annual Hi-Liner Days festival.
Jud
Jud holds fewer than 100 residents in LaMoure County and is named for Judson LaMoure, an early state legislator. Since the early 2000s, residents and visiting artists have painted murals across nearly every building in town, including the post office, the grain elevator, the fire hall, and several houses, turning the place into a walkable open-air gallery of prairie wildlife, rural scenes, and abstract patterns. The annual Jud Art Festival each summer brings in regional artists and live music. Most travelers come for the murals and the sight of an entire town organized around one creative project.
Bottineau
Bottineau sits a little over ten miles south of the Canadian border as the gateway to the Turtle Mountains. Its mascot, the 30-foot fiberglass Tommy the Turtle, went up in 1978 riding a 34-foot snowmobile and is billed as the world’s tallest turtle statue. Pride Dairy on Main Street is the last small-town creamery still operating in North Dakota, known for its Juneberry ice cream. Lake Metigoshe State Park, about fifteen miles north, offers boating, kayaking, fishing, and winter ice fishing. Bottineau Winter Park, the largest ski area in the state, runs ten runs across 200 vertical feet plus a tubing hill, and Dakota College at Bottineau, established in 1906, anchors the campus side of town.
Where The Frontier Still Shows
What these ten towns share is how much of the frontier they kept. The Missouri River and Lake Sakakawea shaped Garrison. The Sheyenne River Valley runs through Fort Ransom, Lisbon, and Valley City. The Pembina Gorge holds Walhalla on the Canadian border, the Badlands hold Medora, and the Turtle Mountains rise behind Bottineau. Each one still keeps its 19th-century buildings and the kind of small-town institutions that have closed almost everywhere else.
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