§ 140B.052.Civil Investigative Demand

The authorising provision, and the two changes from its counterpart both widen it.

Where the attorney general or a local prosecutor has reason to believe that a person may be in possession, custody, or control of any documentary material or other evidence, or may have any information relevant to a civil racketeering investigation, either may before beginning a civil proceeding under this chapter issue and serve a written demand.

The first change is who may issue. An elected county prosecutor can compel production from a person or business anywhere the service rules reach, on their own decision, with no filing and no judicial authorisation.

The second is easy to miss: "under this chapter". The older provision speaks of a demand issued before beginning a civil proceeding; this one says before beginning a civil proceeding under this chapter.

Those three words narrow what the demand precedes but not what it may investigate, and they matter because a local prosecutor’s office is primarily a criminal office. The demand belongs to the civil track this chapter creates.

The threshold is unchanged and is low: reason to believe the person may hold material or may have any relevant information. Recipients need not be suspected of anything.

Four forms are available — documentary material for inspection and copying, written answers to written interrogatories, oral testimony, or any combination.

A recipient should establish which office issued the demand before responding, since the answers go to that office and the enforcement and confidentiality provisions all turn on which one is acting.