John Choi

Last updated
John J. Choi
John Choi.jpg
Ramsey County Attorney
Assumed office
January 2011
Preceded by Susan Gaertner
Saint Paul City Attorney
In office
January 2006 –April 5, 2010
Appointed by Chris Coleman
Preceded byManuel Cervantes
Succeeded bySara Grewing
Personal details
Born(1970-06-02)June 2, 1970
Seoul, South Korea
Political party DFL
Alma mater Hamline University Law School
Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Marquette University
ProfessionLawyer

John J. Choi (born June 2, 1970) is an American attorney and politician who has served as the county attorney of Ramsey County, Minnesota, since 2011. He served as Saint Paul City Attorney from 2006 to 2010. Choi is a first-generation Korean-American immigrant and the first Korean American to serve as a county attorney in the United States. He has gained attention for his office's successful prosecutions of human trafficking and for his support of criminal justice reform efforts.

Contents

Early life and career

Choi was born in Seoul and immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1973. [1] The family resided for a time in Saint Paul's Skyline Tower, the largest subsidized housing complex in the United States west of Chicago. [1] Choi is a graduate of St. Thomas Academy and Marquette University. In 1995, he received a juris doctor from Hamline University Law School and graduated from the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs as a Humphrey Fellow. [1] Prior to graduating from law school, Choi was a legislative aide to Saint Paul City Council member Bob Long and was active in Twin Cities politics.

Between 1995 and 2006, Choi practiced commercial litigation, government relations law, and municipal law with the Twin Cities firms Hessian, McKasy, & Soderberg and Kennedy & Graven, where he became a partner at age thirty. In 2006, he was appointed by Mayor Chris Coleman as Saint Paul City Attorney. As city attorney, Choi served as the city's chief legal counsel and supervised misdemeanor prosecutions.

Tenure as county attorney

In 2010, Choi stepped down as city attorney to run for Ramsey County Attorney, an office vacated by the retiring Susan Gaertner. He received the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party's endorsement and won the August 2010 primary election over attorney David Schultz and Roseville City Council member Tammy Pust, ultimately prevailing over Schultz in the November general election. Choi was reelected without opposition in 2014 and reelected in 2018 over Luke Kyper Bellville with 78.4% of the vote.

As county attorney, Choi oversees all felony prosecutions in Ramsey County, serves as the county's chief legal counsel, and manages the county's child support services. He has embraced criminal justice reform initiatives, establishing a veterans' treatment court, engaging in community prosecution efforts, and working to reduce racial disparities. [2] Along with other reform-minded prosecutors, he has participated in the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution. Choi has also aggressively prosecuted human trafficking and other cases of violence against women, earning recognition from other county attorneys in Minnesota for these efforts. [2]

Since taking office in 2011, Choi has overseen several high-profile prosecutions. In 2015, he announced the indictment of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis for crimes related to the coverup of sexual abuse cases. In 2017, Choi's office prosecuted St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez for manslaughter after the death of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

Related Research Articles

Ramsey County, Minnesota U.S. county in Minnesota

Ramsey County is a county located in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 552,352, making it the second-most populous county in Minnesota. Its county seat and largest city is Saint Paul, the state capital. The county was founded in 1849 and is named for Alexander Ramsey, the first governor of the Minnesota Territory.

District attorney In the United States, represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses

In the United States, a district attorney (DA), state's attorney, prosecuting attorney,commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a local government area, typically a county. The exact name and scope of the office varies by state. Alternative titles for the office include county attorney, commonwealth's attorney, solicitor, or county prosecutor.

Prosecutor

A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against an individual accused of breaking the law. Typically, the prosecutor represents the government in the case brought against the accused person.

Politics of Minnesota

Minnesota is known for a politically active citizenry, with populism being a longstanding force among the state's political parties. Minnesota has consistently high voter turnout; in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, 77.8% of eligible Minnesotans voted – the highest percentage of any U.S. state or territory – versus the national average of 61.7%. This was due in part to its same day voter registration laws; previously unregistered voters can register on election day, at their polls, with evidence of residency.

Harry Herbert Peterson was an American lawyer, judge and politician.

Jeff Modisett

Jeffrey A. Modisett is the former attorney general of the U. S. State of Indiana and county prosecuting attorney of Marion County, Indiana who has worked as an independent legal consultant and CEO of a global legal referral network. He is currently Special Counsel with a boutique law firm in California.

Susan Gaertner

Susan Gaertner is a Minnesota politician and the former county attorney for Ramsey County, Minnesota. She was a candidate for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party endorsement for governor in the 2010 election, and is currently a principal at Minneapolis-based law firm Gray Plant Mooty.

Ron Latz

Ronald Steven Latz is an American attorney and politician serving as a member of the Minnesota Senate. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), he represents District 46, which includes parts of Hennepin County in the western Twin Cities metropolitan area. He is an attorney by profession.

Chuck Wiger American politician

Charles W. "Chuck" Wiger, Sr. is a Minnesota politician and member of the Minnesota Senate. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), he represents District 43, which includes parts of Ramsey and Washington counties in the northeastern Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Michael Paymar is a Minnesota politician and former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), he represented District 64B, which includes portions of the city of Saint Paul in Ramsey County, which is part of the Twin Cities metropolitan area. He is also a resource specialist for the Battered Women's Justice Project.

Carlos Mariani is a Minnesota politician and member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), he represents District 65B, which includes portions of the city of Saint Paul in Ramsey County, which is part of the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Erin Murphy (politician)

Erin Murphy is a Minnesota politician and member of the Minnesota Senate. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represents District 64, which includes the Highland Park, Macalester-Groveland, Merriam Park, Summit Hill, and St. Anthony Park neighborhoods of the city of Saint Paul in Ramsey County in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. She is a former Majority Leader of the Minnesota House of Representatives, executive director of the Minnesota Nurses Association, and is also a registered nurse.

Paul Michael Warner is an American federal magistrate judge for the United States District Court for the District of Utah. He was appointed to this position on February 19, 2006.

Mary Jo McGuire

Mary Jo McGuire is a Minnesota politician and former member of the Minnesota Senate who represented District 66, which included portions of Ramsey County in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. She previously served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1989 to 2003, representing District 54A. Prior to the 1992 legislative redistricting, the area was known as District 63A. She currently serves on the Ramsey County Board and was reelected in 2020.

Wilhelmina Wright

Wilhelmina Marie "Mimi" Wright is a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. She is the only jurist in Minnesota's history to be State District Court Judge, Appellate Court Judge and state Supreme Court justice. She was formerly an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and a Judge of the Minnesota District Court, Second Judicial District.

Luis CdeBaca United States diplomat

Luis Cabeza deBaca is an American lawyer and diplomat who served in the Obama Administration as Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and as Director of the Department of Justice's Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking.

Bruce Beemer American lawyer and politician

Bruce Beemer is an American attorney and jurist serving as a judge on the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. He served as the 49th Pennsylvania Attorney General from 2016 to 2017 and as Inspector General of Pennsylvania from 2016 to 2019. He was nominated to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas by Governor Tom Wolf and unanimously confirmed by the Pennsylvania State Senate in November 2019. He was sworn in on January 3, 2020.

Erica MacDonald American attorney and former Minnesota state judge

Erica Hinkle MacDonald is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota from 2018 to 2021. She served as a judge of the District Court for the First Judicial District of the State of Minnesota from 2010 to 2018; as an Assistant United States Attorney from 2000 to 2009; a litigation associate in 2000; and a federal judicial law clerk from 1997 to 1999.

Eli Savit American lawyer, law professor, and politician

Eli Savit is an American lawyer, law professor, and politician. He is currently serving as the Prosecuting Attorney in Washtenaw County, Michigan. His areas of expertise include civil rights, education law, environmental protection, state and local government, and criminal-justice reform.

Jeffrey Bryan is an American lawyer from Minnesota who is a Judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Oh, Insung. "Korean Community Oral History Project" . Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  2. 1 2 Mohr, Elizabeth (7 January 2015). "Ramsey County Attorney John Choi sets second-term priorities". Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.