Re-Elect Radermacher for Dickey County State’s Attorney

Re-Elect Radermacher for Dickey County State’s Attorney 23 years of legal experience and the Dickey County State’s Attorney for the past 7 years. Advertising Paid for By Candidate.

05/21/2026

Now that I have officially survived the first of my two sons to graduate high school, it is time to switch gears and focus on my re-election campaign for Dickey County State's Attorney. With that said, I thought I would share some things about my background, particularly my qualifications, which I believe make me the ideal candidate for this position.

*I currently own a home in Ellendale that I share with my two sons, Parker and Keaton, as well our two dogs, Frannie and Nova.

*My paternal grandparents, Sylvester and Marie, built their dairy farm just north of Monango where they raised their 14 children. It was the same farm I grew up on after my father, Mike, was honorably discharged from the Army (he was stationed in Colorado for the first two years or so of my life).

*I attended elementary school in Fullerton and completed a majority of my high school education in Monango (collectively Dickey Central) until it closed in 1991. I went on to graduate from Ellendale High School.

*I graduated Summa Cum Laude from NSU with a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology/Criminal Justice. While at NSU, I was on the President's List and inducted into the Pi Gamma Mu Honor Society.

*I graduated with Distinction from the University of North Dakota School of Law. While in law school, I held internships with the LaMoure County and Grand Forks County State's Attorney's offices, Judge Joel Medd's office, and Basin Electric Cooperative, as well as researched and wrote briefs for various private firms. I was an associate editor on, wrote for and was published in the North Dakota Law Review, with my case comment on tribal jurisdiction receiving an award from the ND State Bar Foundation. Other honors include being named on the Dean's List, a Burtness Scholar in Agricultural Law, and a member of Delta Theta Phi. As a third-year law student, I even had the privilege of briefing and arguing an appeal on behalf of the Grand Forks State's Attorney's office (under the guidance of Peter Welte, who is now Chief Judge for the United States District Court, District of North Dakota) before the North Dakota Supreme Court (and have since gone on to argue a multitude of other appeals in front of the Court during my career).

*Upon graduating from law school, I was hired on by Kessel, Splitt and Narum to work in their newly acquired office in Ellendale, which was formerly owned by Mark Scallon. I sat for the North Dakota bar exam that July and was sworn in as an attorney in October of 2003. As a result of my ND bar exam score, I was eligible for a waiver into other jurisdictions without having to take the full bar exam again and opted to do so in SD. I passed the SD bar the following February and became licensed there shortly thereafter. During my time with KSN, my practice consisted primarily of private civil work and assisting the now Judge Narum when needed with the LaMoure County State's Attorney's work. During the summer of 2006, Judge Narum was appointed to his current position, which ultimately resulted in me being appointed and later elected as LaMoure County State's Attorney. In September 2006, I opened up my own law practice and moved my office into what is now Fellows Coffee in Ellendale.

Since that time, I have held the following positions and practiced in the following areas of law that have culminated in a wealth of knowledge and experience that has been vital in my current position as Dickey County State's Attorney:
**I served as LaMoure County State's Attorney for 6 years.
**I was appointed as the acting Dickey County State's Attorney in July 2019 at the request of the then State's Attorneys, Jeff Glynn and Gary Neuharth. I was subsequently elected to the position in 2020 and have proudly served in that capacity since.
**I was appointed in 2004 as the city attorney for the City of Edgeley and thereafter picked up the cities of Ellendale, Kulm and LaMoure. I still continue to serve the cities of Edgeley, Kulm and LaMoure. These positions have provided immense experience in advising political subdivisions on open meeting and records laws, as well as Robert's Rules of Order, drafting and adopting zoning and other ordinances, handling employee issues and questions, reviewing and drafting contracts, developing policies, in addition to so many other issues these entities encounter on a daily basis.
**I currently serve as general counsel for Dakota Valley Electric Cooperative and have for approximately 16 years. While in this position, I have appeared in front of the ND Public Service Commission on multiple occasions.
**I currently serve as the attorney for the LaMoure County Water Resource District and have for approximately 7 years.
**I am currently licensed in the federal courts for both ND and SD. I have been a federal CJA panel (criminal defense) attorney in SD for approximately 20 years (although I have not accepted an appointment on a case for several years now).
**During the times in between being a State's Attorney, I have acted as indigent and/or private defense counsel in criminal and juvenile cases in multiple jurisdictions across the states of North Dakota and South Dakota.
**I have also practiced privately in various areas of the law, as can be seen to some degree on the ndcourts.gov public access page by searching me under attorney name throughout the State of North Dakota.

In addition to my employment, I have served in the following professional, civic or volunteer positions: current President of the North Dakota Rural Electric Cooperative Attorney's Association (15 years); former Dakota Plains Credit Union Board Member (15 years, most of which was served in the capacity as Vice Chair); former board member Ellendale Civic Association; former President, Vice-President and Secretary/Treasurer for the Southeast Judicial District Bar Association (12 years); and former board member of the ND State Bar Association Board of Governors.

I want to sincerely apologize for this long post, but I felt it imperative to give voters an idea of who I am and what I have accomplished in life thus far. Primarily because, knowledge truly is power. So, before you head into the voting booth or submit your absentee ballot(s) this election year, I urge you to become informed about not only my candidacy, but all of the candidates listed on your ballot. We truly need highly qualified candidates in office, particularly at the county level, as Dickey County is currently facing unprecedented population and industrial growth, as well as more complex crimes and governmental issues.

In conclusion, I would greatly appreciate your vote in the upcoming primary and general elections, so that I can continue to help tackle these challenges and keep the job I truly love.

04/30/2026

PARENTS - THIS IS A MUST READ. We have evidence to support this is going on in our communities right here in Dickey County. I urge you to take this seriously and have some very frank discussions with your children about their use of and interactions on the internet.

As many of you know, I am currently the Dickey County State's Attorney and have been acting in that capacity since July ...
04/23/2026

As many of you know, I am currently the Dickey County State's Attorney and have been acting in that capacity since July of 2019. This year I am up for re-election and for the first time in three election cycles, I have an opponent running against me. I had hoped that my initial campaign kickoff would have set forth my biography and qualifications for this position. However, it was recently brought to my attention that one of the claims raised by my opponent in his campaign thus far is that I have not imposed strict enough terms of imprisonment against offenders, and I felt it prudent to address this immediately before it gains any traction.

Many people outside of the justice system aren’t aware of the factors at play that tie the hands of prosecutors and judges in this state when requesting or imposing a term of imprisonment as a condition of sentence.

First, North Dakota has a presumptive probation statute, which is set forth in N.D.C.C. Section 12.1-32-07.4. Under that statute, "the sentencing court shall sentence an individual" who has committed a Class C Felony or lesser offense to a term of PROBATION(not imprisonment), unless very specific conditions are met (i.e. offender registration is required, domestic violence or a dangerous weapon is involved, or there is a mandatory term of imprisonment set by statute). Second, please note the use of the words "the sentencing court shall sentence"...as the State's Attorney, I can make a recommendation as to a specific sentence of imprisonment that I would like to see, but the sentencing court is tasked with imposing the final sentence, not my office. Third, even if a specific offense does not trigger presumptive probation, there are other factors that play into how a suggested term of imprisonment is arrived upon (some of which I don’t touch on in this post - including treatment options in lieu of imprisonment; the effect of imprisonment on recidivism; the need to compensate a victim for damages, etc.)

North Dakota Century Code sets forth the maximum possible penalties for each level of offense - from infractions to Class AA Felonies (N.D.C.C. Section 12.1-32-01). A majority of offenses I see in this county fall within the infraction to misdemeanor range, which means that either no term of imprisonment (infractions) or a maximum term of imprisonment of 360 days total (Class A Misdemeanors) may be imposed.

Any individual sentenced to less than a year and a day of imprisonment will almost always be housed at the local level (meaning county jail and not the North Dakota State Penitentiary, the cost of which falls solely on the taxpayers of this county). The cost of local incarceration varies depending on the jail, but on the average, it costs Dickey County taxpayers approximately $100 - $110 per day per Defendant. So to put that into perspective, if I asked the court to sentence a Defendant to serve the maximum on a Class A Misdemeanor offense, which is 360 days, it would cost the taxpayers of this county between $36,000 and $39,600 just to incarcerate that one Defendant.

Now let us factor in available jail space in this State. As you will see in the graphic below, the North Dakota State Penitentiary is currently operating at 121% capacity. Those they can't house, are put on a deferred admission list causing overflow into local jails, often making beds for recent arrestees hard to come by. Upon sentencing, a majority of those that actually make it to the State Penitentiary (meaning their jail sentence is significant enough to get them there), are paroled almost immediately after orientation, serving relatively little of their original jail sentence in order to make room for higher risk offenders.

As one State's Attorney sadly joked to me about a mutual Defendant recently - "I asked for a four-year term of imprisonment, which means he will be out in 27 days..." It is the unfortunate truth about the current state of our justice system, which unfortunately ties the hands of those tasked to uphold it. Campaign promises will do little to nothing to change this.

Any advertisement of this post is paid for by Candidate, Kimberly J. Radermacher.

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Ellendale, ND
58436

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