Remembering a Maestro: Tom Tuntland’ s legacy in law
By Tom Dickson
In 1985, I was practicing law with Irv Nodland in Bismarck. One morning, I received a call from Tom Tuntland asking if he could come and see me. I told him to come over. I had never met him before that morning. Even then, all those years ago, when a lawyer wanted to see me, it was one of three things: 1.) DUI; 2.) Divorce; or 3.) Disciplinary Complaint. Sometimes it was all three.
Tom did not say why he was coming over, he just said that he was. He came to my office, introduced himself and sat down. And then he asked,“ Are you a Democrat?”
“ Excuse Me?”
“ I heard you were a Democrat.”
“ I don’ t know, most days, I guess. Why?”
“ Do you know Nick Spaeth; the attorney general?”
“ I know him not because I’ m such a good Democrat. I play hockey with Nick every Thursday night, so I do know him pretty well. Why?”
“ I need to hire you to go talk to him.”
At that moment, I knew it was not a DUI, I knew it was not a divorce, and I knew it was not a disciplinary complaint. But Tom had still not said why he was there.
Primary criminal jurisdiction is in the counties. The state’ s attorney investigates and prosecutes the cases. The attorney general’ s office has jurisdiction over criminal cases if the local state’ s attorney has a conflict. The case is then transferred from the county to the attorney general’ s office for investigation and possible prosecution. The most common conflict is when the target of the criminal investigation is a local lawyer. But I looked at him and said,“ I still don’ t understand why the AG is involved in this?”
“ Well, it’ s a Ward County Case. Do you know Tom Schoppert?”
“ Oh no, not another Schoppert case. Dear Lord.”
“ What did Schoppert do now?”
“ Well, it’ s not exactly about Schoppert.”
“ Who’ s it about?”
“ They say it’ s about me.”
“ You?”
“ Yep. Me.”
“ Why don’ t we start from the beginning here … and you tell me what happened.”
“ Schoppert and I were defending a drug conspiracy case in Ward County. Apparently, some colorful language was overheard after the preliminary hearing,” Tom continued.
“ Really, what kind of colorful language?
“ You know, the standard fair. The judge is a moron, the prosecutor is an asshole, the confidential informant is a liar. The usual stuff.”
“ Lawyers talk like that all the time. Whoever overheard that language knows that,” I said.
“ Well, it’ s a little bit more than someone just overhearing it. There’ s a transcript.”
“ A transcript?”
“ When Schoppert and I were talking at counsel table, the microphones were still on, the judge and court reporter overheard the conversation back in chambers, they made a transcript.”
Then Tom pushes the transcript across my desk, and I read it:“ The Court: The Court closes the record in case no …., State of North Dakota versus J. G. and J. G. at 3:00 p. m. on March 4, 1985. We are adjourned. Thank you everyone.
Mr. Schoppert: What should we do with this snitch?
Mr. Tuntland: Let’ s just slit his f ****** throat.”
20 THE GAVEL