Neil Nelson Email & Phone Number

I am currently the Chief Deputy at the Scott County Attorney’s Office. I directly supervise the felony prosecutors and have general supervisory duties for others in the criminal divison. A 1980 garduate from the University of Minnesota Law School, I am Board Certified by the Minnesota State Bar Association as a Criminal Law Specialist.I worked in the Mower County Attorney’s Office in Austin, Minnesota, from 1981 to 1987. I have been with the Scott County Attorney’s Office since. Most recently, from 2003 to 2014 I was the Criminal Division Head for Scott County, in addition to carrying my own case load of felony and gross misdemeanor criminal cases.My trial experience includes more than one hundred criminal jury trials, including murder, attempted murder, criminal sexual conduct, aggravated robbery, kidnapping, arson, criminal vehicular homicide and injury, assault, burglary, theft, and controlled substances.In 1996 I was second chair on the first criminal case in which DNA evidence was presented in Scott County. The case was a rape case--State v. Spears. The Defendant was a twice-convicted rapist. After numerous appeals, he ultimately recieved a sentence of 35 years, and is still in prison. In October of 2014 I was one of the presenters at the Carver County Homicide Seminar. The case was a tragic domestic murder--State v. Maddox. The victim was a newspaper reporter who had done articles on domestic violence. The murder happened in November of 2008. The Defendant killed his wife and hid her body in the garage. He then dressed as a woman and traveled to the airport in an attempt to establish that she left the area. At the airport he changed into his own clothes, and left her car in the parking lot while he took a bus and a taxi back home. The police found her body before the defendant could move it from the garage. The jury rejected his claims of self defense and Acute Stress Disorder. He was convicted and senteneced to thirty years in prison.

Listed skills include Evidence, Westlaw, Trials, Jury Trials, and 17 others.