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Closing arguments sent the Sen. Nicole Mitchell to jury deliberations Friday in a criminal trial that will have a bearing on the political makeup of the Minnesota Legislature.

Mitchell, a first-term DFLer from Woodbury, is charged with two felonies — first-degree attempted burglary and possession of burglary tools. It stems from her arrest after police were called to respond to a break-in at the Detroit Lakes home of her stepmother in April 2024. 

A conviction would make it almost impossible for Mitchell to carry on in the public role. The Senate is currently split 34-33 in favor of Democrats.

The jury got the case at 12:38 p.m. following a battery of remarks from attorneys that summarized what was discussed over the past few days.

Judge Michael Fritz started to read jury instructions earlier in the day. Fritz told jurors not to “infer or speculate” about what might have happened and to base their verdict solely on the evidence and testimony presented during the multi-day trial. 

He said jurors must decide beyond a reasonable doubt to find Mitchell guilty and that she is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Fritz ended by going point-by-point through underlying laws for the charges and describing what each element means.

Right on the heels of that came the closing arguments by the prosecution and defense. 

Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald began by repeating a statement Mitchell made while in police custody: "I know I did something bad.”

He added, "Now she wants to lie about it."

McDonald asked the jurors to trust their eyes and ears, which he said, would make them "confident in the decision to convict the defendant."

"Her testimony was carefully crafted to protect the one person she cares about the most in this case: herself," he said. 

He asked jurors not to be moved by sympathy for the DFL senator, and noted that Mitchell had admitted to several key allegations, such as entering Carol Mitchell’s home without consent. 

McDonald took issue with the idea that Mitchell was conducting a welfare check, noting that she had not requested an official one. 

He called her an “admitted liar,” and that her “overexplaining” was a “classic example of lies.” One example he pointed to was Mitchell packing peculiar items, including Latex gloves. She alleged she thought she might have to clean up feces but McDonald pointed out that she did not also pack bleach items like bleach, concluding that her story did not make sense.

McDonald also underlined her insistence that she was never lying next to Carol Mitchell’s bed. Carol Mitchell, in her 911 call to police, explicitly said someone was lying next to her bed and she stepped on the person. She also repeated the assertion to police later. 

Mitchell's attorney, Bruce Ringstrom Jr., told jurors to search their consciences. “We have all told white lies,” he said. 

“The state needs you to believe that Nicole Mitchell, a person who has spent 30 years in the military, a legislator, a lawyer ... would drive three hours to get a shirt that had already been promised to her,” he said.

If she were there to steal, Ringstrom argued, she would not have gone upstairs to Carol Mitchell’s bedroom. 

“Going upstairs means welfare check,” he said. 

As Nicole Mitchell looked at the jury, Ringstrom also insisted that the “acrimonious relationship” between Nicole and Carol Mitchell did not obviate the idea that Mitchell cared about her stepmother and was concerned about her well-being.

He told jurors that such relationships are common. “The love binds us, and sometimes we don’t get along. So what?” he said.

He downplayed details called out by the prosecution, like the damage to the window through which Mitchell broke in, saying, “You can’t ascertain a person’s intent from that.”

Ringstrom took aim at the prosecution in focusing on the details of Mitchell’s well-planned trip to her stepmother’s house, saying the state had “shamefully” argued that the “why doesn’t matter.” 

He also said “evidence shows nobody is taking care of Carol Mitchell,” which is why Nicole Mitchell felt compelled to check on her.

Ringstrom had other moments of dramatic flair, holding the sock-covered flashlight before jury and telling jurors to inspect it closely. He suggested it would contradict what the prosecution said about it.

“The state wants to impute this bad intention but also this sophistication,” Ringstrom said about the doubt that Mitchell was there to steal from her stepmother. He added, “You are entitled to assign any weight to the state’s evidence, including no weight at all.”

Mitchell’s aunt, Cindy Markey, and her colleague in the Wisconsin National Guard, Jay Brody, testified Friday to Nicole Mitchell’s positive character.  Markey said she had spoken with Mitchell about ways to enter Carol Mitchell’s home if they were worried about her safety.

“I did have a passcode to get into her house, but if she was mad at me, she would dead bolt it, and then I couldn't get in,” Markey said about Carol Mitchell. “And after a couple days, I'd be very concerned, and I would find a way in.”

Markey also said Nicole’s late father would be disappointed that his daughter entered Carol Mitchell’s home without her permission but would understand if Nicole was looking out for Carol’s wellbeing.

Mitchell took the stand on Thursday to explain her reasons for entering her stepmother’s home without permission and spelling out a fraying relationship with Carol Mitchell. The prosecution then took her to task during cross examination about whether she knew what she was doing was wrong.

Mitchell admitted that she broke into the house in pre-dawn hours after driving through the night to Detroit Lakes, and she acknowledged her actions were wrong but said she went there out of concern about her stepmother, who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

“I don’t take things,” she told the court, adding that she could have taken clothes or other belongings of her father from the house during her prior visits. In police body camera video, however, Mitchell can be heard saying she had come to collect items of her father.

“I did trespass,” she testified. “I understand that I did the wrong thing. To me, it felt different because it was my parents’ house and I had a key and I’d been in and out of there for years.”

Earlier Thursday, Mitchell testified that she once had a close relationship with her stepmother Carol Mitchell — but that changed in recent years as Carol experienced the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

“She was one of my parents,” Mitchell said, recalling her experience with her stepmother before her diagnosis with Alzheimer’s. “I always remember Carol being in my life and as a mother figure, and so it was nice to have another mother figure.”

But in recent years and especially since her father’s death in 2023, Sen. Mitchell noted repeatedly that Carol Mitchell had become increasingly confused, irrational and agitated.

On the day she went to the home in the early morning darkness, dressed in all black, Mitchell testified that as she tried to enter the home, it appeared a chair was pushed up against the door. So she said she went through a basement egress window. Once inside, she said she checked to see if the mail had been opened, that there was food in the fridge, that Carol's phone was working. Mitchell testified she even went into Carol’s bedroom.

“I know this sounds creepy, I sat and listened to her breathe for a couple seconds, kind of like when I check on my kids at night and they’re breathing and I can hear them and I know they’re OK.”

That’s when Carol woke up. Mitchell said Carol recognized her and asked her what she was doing there. Then Mitchell ran to the basement and Carol called 9-1-1, saying someone had broken into her house.

Mitchell was asked by her attorney if she regrets what she did.

“So I regret what happened and maybe that I didn’t do it the right way. I don’t regret being worried. I think you should try to look out for your family.”

But Mitchell’s testimony at times contradicted what she said to police, recorded in the body camera footage of her arrest.

The jury saw that footage Tuesday and again in closing arguments. It shows Mitchell being taken into custody, and she tells police that she was at the house to get a few mementos of her late father, including “a couple pictures and maybe one of his shirts.”

McDonald pounced on those contradictions in his cross examination. He asked her over and over what was truth and what was fiction, circling back to what she told police that night.

McDonald also pressed her several times on whether she was truly concerned or if she was trying to cover for her criminal actions, and he returned to the topic in a key moment before ending his cross examination.

“You’ve talked about paranoia and triggers and things like that,” McDonald asked.

“And yet, fully aware of all of that, fully aware of Carol Mitchell’s Alzheimer’s, you still made a decision to break into her house that morning,” McDonald continued, seeming incredulous. 

“In your mind that was the best course of action, not telling anybody else, driving 220 miles and breaking into her house,” McDonald stated, before Mitchell’s defense objected on grounds the question had already been asked and answered, and the judge sustained the objection.

McDonald then pivoted and asked Mitchell if her father was proud of her accomplishments. “I believe he was, yes,” Mitchell responded.

“How would he feel about you breaking into his own home?” McDonald then sharply asked.

Nicole Mitchell paused for several seconds before responding in a measured tone.

“I think he would be very sad by this whole situation and that he would support me because he loved Carol and even if I did it the wrong way, he would have wanted me to do my best to take care of her,” she testified. 

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A jury is deciding the fate of two felony charges against Sen. Nicole Mitchell. She was arrested in 2024 for allegedly breaking into her stepmother’s Detroit Lakes home. The intrusion isn’t disputed but the reasons for it are central to the case.

Sen. Nicole Mitchell's burglary case put in hands of jury after multi-day trial

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