Top prosecutor looks back on 16-year tenure

Susan Gaertner has been in the public eye a lot in the past year -- in the murder of Maplewood police Sgt. Joe Bergeron, in the debacle over Toyota driver Koua Fong Lee, in her failed bid for governor.

But it's not the high-profile prosecutions or political aspirations that Gaertner mentions when she talks about her biggest accomplishments over 16 years as Ramsey County attorney, a tenure that ends Jan. 2.

Instead she talks about truancy and runaway intervention programs, the joint domestic abuse prosecution unit and enhanced child support enforcement.

"I'm very, very proud of the work that the truancy intervention has done, and we have managed to, I think, raise expectations as to what kids should be doing," she said. "It wasn't my idea, actually. A couple of staff attorneys here became aware of an L.A. program that was very effectively addressing truancy. ... But it's the project over the last 16 years that I'm most proud of because it has affected the community in such a basic, positive way."

The runaway intervention project tries to strengthen families and forestall criminal activity. Gaertner's pride in the project is mixed with disappointment that something like it wasn't tried earlier. She recalled that as a senior at Harding High School in St. Paul in 1972, she wrote about the need for a shelter for runaways on the east side of the Mississippi, similar to The Bridge in Minneapolis.

"And now, 38 years later, it's finally going to happen," she said. "I wonder how many lives you could have improved dramatically if it hadn't taken this long."

Gaertner, 56, of White Bear Lake, won't say what she plans to do after turning over the office Jan. 3 to John Choi.

Gaertner was just the fourth Ramsey County attorney since 1933 and the first woman. A native of St. Paul's East Side, she graduated from the University of Minnesota Duluth and the University of Minnesota Law School.

After two years as a law clerk in Duluth for a federal appeals court judge and a yearlong stint as a white-collar criminal defense attorney, she joined the county attorney's office in 1984.

"Tom Foley made me promise to stay two years," she recalled. "That was a very difficult promise to make. Then 26 years later, here we are."

Became DNA expert

In 1994, Foley ran for the U.S. Senate, and voters elected Gaertner to succeed him. They elected her in 1998, 2002 and 2006.

During her 1998 reelection campaign, her romantic relationship with John Wodele, a subordinate in her office, became akin to tabloid fodder. Wodele left the office shortly after the news became public. They married in 2000.

Does she believe she was treated differently because she is a woman?

"It's very hard to know" was what Gaertner would say on the record. "I was an ardent Hillary Rodham Clinton for president supporter and certainly made observations that made me think she was treated differently because of her gender. But there's no way to know."

Gaertner became a nationally recognized expert on DNA evidence -- "another piece of irony because I graduated from college having had one science course in all of college: physics for poets," she recalled, laughing.

She spearheaded in 2001 a review of pre-1996 convictions to see if current DNA technology would shed new light. That led to the exoneration of one man in a sexual assault case and to the development of a uniform evidence retention policy for the county. The DNA project also led to reforms in the use of eyewitness identifications and photo-lineup procedures.

Gaertner said this month that she has no regrets about seeking the DFL endorsement for governor this year. Still, she isn't likely to run for public office again.

"To have that opportunity to learn so much about the state and the issues is just priceless," she said. "But unfortunately, I never could raise the money that I would have needed to keep going."

And what of the slings and arrows thrown Gaertner's way earlier this year over the Lee case? He was convicted of criminal vehicular operation in connection with a 2006 crash that ultimately killed three people. After news of Toyota's problems with sudden unintended acceleration surfaced, and after months of nationwide attention and legal wrangling, Lee was freed from prison in August.

"I certainly regret, enormously, that three people are dead," Gaertner said. "I regret that it became a crusade for certain media outlets rather than something they reported. ... I don't think the public got the full picture of the difficult issues involved.

"I don't regret that Mr. Lee is out of prison."