January 14, 1997 - Midday’s Gary Eichten discusses crime, criminal defense, punishment, and crime prevention with newly-appointed Hennepin County Chief Public Defender William McGee. Program includes listener call-in questions.
January 28, 1997 - MPR’s Chris Roberts reports that the battle lines that marked the fight over passage of Minnesota’s Human Rights Bill have not gone away. Roberts interviews numerous individuals on the law’s effect.
February 10, 1997 - Midday looks at drunk driving and the proposal to reduce the legal blood alcohol limit for driving to .08 with Steve Simon, University of Minnesota law professor and director of the MN Criminal Justice System DWI Task Force; and Lynn Goughler, public liaison and legislative chair of the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).
March 19, 1997 - Mainstreet Radio’s Catherine Winter looks at Challenge Incarceration Program, a Minnesota juvenile boot camp in Willow River. Supporters say strict discipline and hard work will knock some sense into criminals. But research seems to indicate that boot camps don’t work, don’t save money, and they don’t rehabilitate criminals.
April 2, 1997 - MPR’s Bob Potter interviews Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton about an arbitrator’s decision than former Minneapolis police officer Mike Sauro is to be reinstated, after being fired by the city for second time. Sayles Belton shares why she disagrees with the decision, her concerns over off-duty work by officers in businesses that serve alcohol, and need for officer training.
April 10, 1997 - MPR's Jon Gordon reports that there will be no spears or gillnets on Mille Lacs Lake, for now. A federal appeals court has refused to allow eight Ojibwe Bands, including six from Wisconsin, to spear and gillnet on Mille Lacs and other Minnesota lakes this spring. The move comes after landowners and some counties appealed a federal judge's order allowing the bands to begin fishing in the 12 county area of east-central Minnesota.
April 11, 1997 - MPR’s Bill Wareham reports on residents of the Phillips neighborhood in South Minneapolis packing City Council chambers morning to plead for more help combatting violence.
April 29, 1997 - MPR’s Karen-Louise Boothe reports on members of the Minnesota House debating for more than two hours the merits DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), a measure banning same-sex marriage. The roll call vote was preceeded by more than two hours of sometimes very personal and emotional testimony. In the end, representatives voted overwhelmingly to keep it as amended to the omnibus health and human services bill.
April 30, 1997 - Ojibwe Band members had hoped to be spearing and netting fish on dozens of central Minnesota lakes by now. For seven years a group of tribes, led by the Mille Lacs Ojibwe, worked through the courts to restore fishing and hunting rights given them by treaty in the 19th century. It appeared the tribes would finally exercise those rights this spring. But a group of local landowners won an injunction earlier this month, halting the Indians' plans, at least for now.
May 14, 1997 - MPR’s Karen-Louise Boothe reports that a bill banning same-sex marriage in Minnesota appears likely to pass this legislative session. A ban successfully passed out of a joint House-Senate conference committee, which included it in the omnibus health-finance bill.