Ollestad v. Brian Smith and Lucas Athey
- Laura Provinzino
- 0:26-cv-01982
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 4
In Ollestad v. Smith, Judge Provinzino denied Ollestad’s detention petition and dismissed it without prejudice because federal courts cannot interfere with his ongoing state prosecutions.
The order directly affects Thomas Richard Ollestad’s federal detention petition and related motions. It did not dismiss his four pending state criminal cases or order his release.
What happened
In Thomas Richard Ollestad v. Brian Smith and Lucas Athey, Ollestad asked the federal court to order his release from the Kanabec County Jail, dismiss four pending state criminal cases, and award damages for alleged misconduct and unlawful detention.
A magistrate judge recommended denying the petition because federal courts generally must not interfere with ongoing state criminal proceedings. The magistrate judge also found that Ollestad had not completed available state-court remedies and that some requested relief was not available through a detention petition. Ollestad objected and asked the court to expedite the case and pause the state proceedings.
Judge Laura M. Provinzino overruled the objections, adopted the recommendation, denied the petition, denied the two applications to proceed without paying filing fees as moot, and denied the request to expedite and pause the state cases as moot. The matter was dismissed without prejudice.
The detailed version
- Ollestad v. Brian Smith and Lucas Athey · No. 0:26-cv-01982
- Laura M. Provinzino
- May 21, 2026
Background
Thomas Richard Ollestad filed a petition asking the federal court to order his immediate release from detention at the Kanabec County Jail in Mora, Minnesota. He raised claims concerning his detention and alleged misconduct by various individuals and Minnesota officials in connection with four pending state criminal prosecutions. He also asked the court to dismiss those prosecutions with prejudice and award damages under various federal civil and criminal statutes.
On April 20, 2026, Magistrate Judge Shannon G. Elkins issued a Report and Recommendation recommending that the petition be denied. The recommendation explained that the Younger abstention doctrine generally prevents a federal court from interfering with ongoing state criminal proceedings. It also stated that, if that doctrine did not apply, Ollestad’s claims failed because he had not exhausted available state-court remedies and because the requested relief was not available through a habeas petition, meaning a petition seeking relief from unlawful detention.
Objections and analysis
Ollestad filed 12 objections, but the court found that only his objection to applying the Younger doctrine addressed the recommendation’s analysis. The other objections concerned the recommendation’s wording or aspects of Minnesota law as applied in his state criminal proceedings.
The court concluded that Younger abstention applied. Ollestad was asking the federal court to interfere with his ongoing criminal prosecutions, and the court found no indication that those proceedings were brought in bad faith or under criminal statutes that were plainly unconstitutional. The court also noted that Ollestad had not shown that he lacked, or would lack, an opportunity to raise his complaints about Minnesota law in the state proceedings. The court found no other error in the recommendation and adopted it in full.
Order
The court ordered that:
- Ollestad’s objections were overruled. - The Report and Recommendation was adopted. - Ollestad’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus was denied. - Ollestad’s applications to proceed without paying filing fees were denied as moot. - His motion to expedite the federal proceedings and stay all state criminal proceedings was denied as moot. - The matter was dismissed without prejudice.
The order did not release Ollestad or dismiss the four state criminal cases.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.