Justice on Trial: Does Fair Process Matter More Than the Verdict?

We want our criminal justice system to produce "just" outcomes: no innocent person should ever be charged, the guilty should be punished and rehabilitated, society should be protected from dangerous actors, victims should be restored to where they were before victimization, et cetera. But the system spends far more time and energy arguing over how the system works (the process) than what the system produces (the result). This can and often does result in a process that is regarded as just, but an outcome that is regarded as unjust: the innocent are sometimes convicted, the guilty are sometimes acquitted, and victims are rarely made whole. We will discuss why this focus on the process is generally better than a focus on outcomes, and some of the seemingly insoluble problems that procedural justice creates for broader justice.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr. has spent the last 15 years practicing criminal law. After graduating from Moorhead High School, Bruce served in the United States Navy for 4 years, then moved back to Moorhead to attend MSUM, majoring in philosophy and history. Upon graduation, he attended Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul. While there, Bruce completed an internship at the Minnesota Public Defender Appellate Office and was a student attorney at the Anoka County Public Defender’s Office, where he represented nearly 1,000 clients. After law school, Bruce spent several years as a full-time public defender in northern Minnesota.

In 2013, he started Ringstrom Law, a criminal defense boutique. In 2021, Bruce partnered with Dane DeKrey, and the two formed the firm Ringstrom DeKrey PLLP. Bruce is a graduate of the Minnesota Public Defender Trial School and Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyers College, and is certified as a Criminal Law Specialist by the Minnesota State Bar Association. Bruce is licensed in Minnesota and North Dakota, and has been admitted pro hac vice to practice law in Georgia.

Dane DeKrey is a criminal defense lawyer who has spent a decade practicing both private and public law. He’s received various awards for his work, including being named a Minnesota Super Lawyer “Rising Star” and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Dane also became a Certified Criminal Law Specialist in 2024.

Prior to co-founding Ringstrom DeKrey, Dane was the director of the ACLU of North Dakota. Before that, Dane worked as an assistant federal public defender in Fargo, where he handled hundreds of federal criminal cases. Dane attended law school at the University of Minnesota. Before law school, Dane worked for Congressman Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota and attended college at UND. Dane serves on the board of Lunch Aid North Dakota and as an advisor to the Great Northern Innocence Project.