Ray Schmitz, former Olmsted County Attorney whose life was defined by public service, has died

Dec. 18—ROCHESTER — Ray Schmitz, who served as Olmsted County Attorney for nearly a quarter of century and led a life defined by public service, has died.

Schmitz, 84, died Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, at Charter House — Mayo Clinic Retirement Living.

Schmitz made a direct leap from the University of Minnesota law school to the Olmsted County Attorney's office, where he served as assistant county attorney for 14 years. When the top position opened up, Schmitz was elected county attorney, a job he held for the next 24 years, winning six straight elections.

"His entire career was dedicated to public service, to public safety," said Olmsted County Attorney Mark Ostrem. "That's quite a career to literally walk out of law school right into the office like this."

Schmitz

prosecuted the case against David Brom, a Rochester youth who killed his dad, mom, brother and sister with an ax in their home on the outskirts of Rochester 35 years ago,

making it the most sensational murder case in Rochester.

The trial ended up changing case law, as Schmitz sought and prevailed in having Brom, then 16 and with a teenage boyishness that made his crime all the more incomprehensible, charged as an adult.

"It was

one of the saddest events in our community.

But he prosecuted the case. And there were issues that went up to the (state) Supreme Court," Ostrem said. "Nobody walked away from that case feeling good, you know, about sending David off to prison for what was about 70 years. Ray didn't feel good about that. But at the same time, he had to take it up."

Schmitz believed in using his post as a bully pulpit, a voice in shaping public policy at the state level. He served on numerous boards and task forces, bringing wider attention to local concerns and issues. He served on the Sentencing Guidelines Commission. He was an advocate of enhanced sex offender sanctions and community notification legislation. He served as a board of director on the Minnesota County Attorneys Association and on the State Drug and Gang Task Force Oversight Commission.

"Ray was an absolute advocate for this community," Ostrem said.

Schmitz also carried that ethic of public service into retirement after he lost re-election in 2006 to Ostrem, serving as co-chair of NAACP and environmentally focused boards.

Retired Olmsted County Sheriff Steve Borchardt, whose career overlapped with that of Schmitz, said Schmitz had a sharp mind, and investigators had to be prepared to defend the cases they brought to the county attorney's office for prosecution.

"Ray was extremely intelligent," Borchardt said. "He was challenging. Cops got frustrated with him from time to time, because he could be very demanding. And you had to be ready and willing to defend as an investigator why you did what you did."

Schmitz was adversarial at times, as the job required, but he was also capable of being a good listener.

Ostrem said he had just returned from a lunch where they talked about Schmitz, and someone brought up how Schmitz and Candace Ramussen, a public defender, would share rides to attend a state sentencing guidelines commission together, even though their advocacy were on different sides of the ledger.

"Both by nature were adversarial. And they would ride together to these meetings, and they'd have conversations on the way up and on the way back," Ostrem said.

During Schmitz's 24-year tenure, Olmsted County grew significantly in population and saw the emergence of social problems — such as illegal drug use — often associated with larger cities. Ostrem was an advocate for drug court, an alternative to incarceration that was seen as a cheaper, more effective way of dealing with low-level offenders.

Schmitz resisted drug courts, questioning whether the costs matched the benefits. It proved to be a defining issue in their election contest, and Schmitz lost to Ostrem.

"He engaged," Borchardt said. "Some county attorneys stayed on the sidelines because it looked like it could be politically risky. And he was willing to get involved with that kind of stuff."

Borchardt recalled how the death of his first wife, Cindy, in 1998 left him devastated, and how Schmitz was someone he could turn to in his grief.

"He and I talked fairly often for that first six months. When I had some days that I just needed to talk about it, he was a really good listener. He was a caring person," Borchardt said.

Schmitz was an early proponent of indoor smoking bans. Former Rochester City Council Member Michael Wojcik recalled his first interaction with Schmitz was at an environmental commission meeting where the topic under discussion was a smoking ban in workplaces. The meeting "quickly went off the rails," until Schmitz helped to bring it under control and pass a resolution urging the Olmsted County Board to adopt such a ban. It eventually did.

"Ray was the kind of friend who had a moral compass that never wavered," Wojcik said. "He was the kind of friend that would not be afraid to let me know when he thought I was wrong ... in the most curmudgeonly way possible. Even when he did that, I never felt that his advice was coming anywhere but a place of love and respect. I will miss him greatly."

In retirement, Schmitz remained active politically and opinionated, firing off numerous PB letters to the editor and serving on the PB's editorial board.

Borchardt and Schmitz were neighbors, living on the north side of Silver Lake. They remained friendly to each other, even though their political differences played out on Facebook.

Schmitz's transition to Charter House was sudden. He suffered from chronic back problems that suddenly became much worse when he fell one day. The accident led to an emergency room visit and then to care at Charter House.

"He had literally walked away from his house that morning and never went back," Borchardt said.

There has been no announcement about funeral service plans. Arrangements are being performed by Rochester Cremation Services.