Sen. Jeff Magrum, R-Hazelton during a North Dakota legislative session on April 15, 2025. (Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)
BISMARCK, N.D. (KFGO) – A North Dakota state senator plans to introduce a resolution urging President Donald Trump to grant executive clemency to two men serving life sentences for their roles in a 1983 shootout that left two U.S. marshals dead.
State Sen. Jeff Magrum, R-Hazelton, is sponsoring the draft concurrent resolution on behalf of Scott Faul, 73, and Yorie Kahl, 66. Both men have been in federal custody for more than 43 years following the ambush near Medina, North Dakota.
“I just felt like justice isn’t being served,” Magrum said. “If you pay your debt to society and serve your sentence, you should be let out”.
The resolution formally requests that the 69th Legislative Assembly urge the president to grant clemency and asks the secretary of state to forward copies of the measure to the White House and North Dakota’s congressional delegation.
A Deadly Encounter and Decades in Prison
Faul and Kahl were convicted in federal court following the Feb. 13, 1983 shootout that resulted in the deaths of Deputy U.S. Marshals Kenneth Muir of Fargo and Robert Cheshire of Bismarck. Three other law enforcement officers were wounded during the confrontation.
A jury convicted both men of two counts of second-degree murder, four counts of assaulting federal officers, one count of conspiracy to assault, and one count of harboring a fugitive. Each was sentenced to two concurrent life terms plus an additional 15 consecutive years.
Faul is currently imprisoned at the Milan Federal Correctional Institution in Michigan, while Kahl is held at the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina.
According to the resolution, both men began serving their sentences on June 24, 1983, with an initial presumptive parole date of Feb. 12, 2013. The Bureau of Prisons later extended that date to 2023.
The U.S. Parole Commission subsequently denied parole requests for both men in 2023 and again in 2025.
“The goalposts keep changing,” Magrum said, noting that the pair’s next opportunity to apply for parole will not come until 2027. “That’s kind of a cruel and unusual punishment to them and their families to expect to get out, and then the sentence keeps changing”.
Legislative Path Ahead
Magrum said his decision to draft the resolution stemmed from a phone call he received two years ago from Faul while Magrum was serving as a presidential elector. After previous outreach to federal lawmakers yielded no results, Magrum decided to bring the matter before the state legislature.
“I know there’s victims on the other side and I am sympathetic to them too,” Magrum acknowledged. “But the fact of the matter is Scott left behind five children and Yorie a daughter, and they’ve served their debt to society”.
Magrum plans to present the resolution on Monday to Legislative Management, which will determine whether it will be included in an upcoming special session. It is one of roughly 29 proposed bills and resolutions under consideration for the session.
He said he has circulated the draft to lawmakers representing the area surrounding Medina to gauge interest in co-sponsoring the measure.
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