Former public defender Mary Moriarty persuaded voters upset by George Floyd's murder that public safety could be improved by curbing police misconduct and easing penalties in the criminal justice system. He became Minneapolis' top prosecutor last year.
Chaos quickly ensued. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat who supported Moriarty when he campaigned for Hennepin County prosecutor, said last spring that Moriarty's office had offered prosecutors an overly lenient plea deal. He concluded that the case had been presented and took over the murder case from his office. Juvenile defendant.
By the fall, two judges had taken the unusual step of rejecting a plea deal proposed by Moriarty's office, saying it was too lenient for violent crimes.
Moriarty came under fire earlier this year after he indicted a state trooper on murder charges for fatally shooting a motorist who sped away during a traffic stop.
Several law enforcement officials have questioned the strength of the evidence in the case, and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and lawmakers from both parties have expressed concern about the charges.
“Mary Moriarty did one thing that was very positive,” said Chris Madel, the attorney representing state trooper Ryan Londregan, who is awaiting trial in the death of Ricky Cobb II. “She has restored her bipartisan standing to Minnesota, and both left and right agree that she is doing a terrible job.”
Moriarty is one of the few leftists elected in recent years pledging to overhaul the justice system by incarcerating fewer people, holding police accountable for misconduct and reducing racial inequality. He is one of the prosecutors. He faced strong resistance from some as he called for limiting cash bail requirements to reduce prison populations and relaxing penalties for certain types of crimes.
In 2022, San Francisco voters recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin amid growing public anger over property crimes and open-air drug dealing. In St. Louis, Prosecutor-elect Kimberly Gardner resigned last year after a checkered tenure. But voters at times did not support prosecutors as police unions, elected officials and others rallied against them. Efforts by Pennsylvania lawmakers to replace Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner have failed, and a recall effort against Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has also failed.
In the coming months, the charges against Officer Ron Regan will be filed in Minneapolis, where the death of Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 sparked nationwide protests against racism and police misconduct. It will be a new test of national sentiment.
Moriarty, 60, said in an interview that he was under no illusions that his vision would be easy to realize. But the intensity of the backlash she witnessed displeased her, she said.
“I actually can't believe we're in the city where the George Floyd incident happened,” she said. “It's so easy to scare people with crime. It's a tactic people have been using forever, and it's starting to work again.”
Moriarty began studying law as a child while driving near his home in rural northern Minnesota with his father, a criminal procedure officer. Her father was playing a cassette tape of her lecture on the rules of evidence. After her college graduation, Ms. Moriarty briefly worked as a journalist, after which she earned a law degree from the University of Minnesota.
Kevin S. Burke, a former district judge who hired Moriarty as a law clerk, described him as a talented trial lawyer with a knack for organizing opening and closing arguments.
As she rose through the ranks in the Hennepin County Public Defender's Office, Ms. Moriarty demonstrated a talent for creativity. Once, she hired local theater actors to teach lawyers how to connect with jurors and turn legal theories into compelling stories.
Moriarty, who has represented criminal defendants for decades, said the court system is too ready to punish and too little to provide people with the tools to turn their lives around. I was convinced.
“What I've observed with some of the prosecutors here is that there's someone called the perpetrator and someone called the victim, and the victim typically has to be pure and never intersect. That was the case,” she said. Her case, she said, reflects a more nuanced reality, including the defendants who themselves were victims of crimes.
In 2014, Ms. Moriarty became the first woman to serve as director of the Hennepin County Public Defender's Office. She received praise for going beyond the typical criminal defense by helping her clients secure jobs, housing, and medical care.
Her last year as chief public defender was eventful. In late 2019, the Minnesota Public Defense Commission suspended her from her job and launched an investigation into her management style, citing allegations from her employees that she created a “culture of fear.” did.
Moriarty disputes that characterization, recalling the time as traumatic. She said she believes the investigation was instigated by sexism, her efforts to get staff raises and a tense exchange with prosecutors over her use of the word “thug.” Told.
Ms. Moriarty was reinstated, but resigned after it became clear the board would not retain her at the end of her term. She left with a $300,000 settlement in which she agreed not to work as a public defender in Minnesota.
In late 2021, Moriarty launched a campaign to replace the retiring top county attorney, laying out a platform that supporters see as an answer to the violence that followed the killing of George Floyd. She promised to create a force to hold “police officers who violate trust and commit crimes” to account and steer more juvenile offenders toward treatment alternatives to incarceration.
In 2022, Mr. Moriarty handily defeated a more conservative rival, a former judge and former prosecutor, backed by local newspapers and law enforcement unions.
Critics emerged soon after she took office. Relatives of the victims said they were disappointed in the plea deals offered to minors charged with violent crimes.
Susan Markey's brother Stephen was shot and killed during a carjacking in 2019, and Hussein Braveheart, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, has been charged with murder.
After a judge rejected a plea deal offered by Moriarty's office that would have spared the teen prison time, Moriarty charged Braveheart with attempted first-degree assault, a lesser crime. I was allowed to admit it. She responded well to treatment and has made great progress.
Markey called the findings grossly misguided and said Moriarty continues to act like a public defender.
“Now that she's a prosecutor, she continues to use the same tactics and espouse the same views,” Markey said. “She is a political idealist and does not respond to external feedback or facts that do not align with her own point of view.”
Last spring, Minnesota Attorney General Ellison took over Moriarty's office in prosecuting the shooting death of the girl's mother, Zaria McKeever, in her suburban Minneapolis home. Authorities said McKeever was targeted by her ex-boyfriend and enlisted two teenagers to carry out the shooting of her.
Moriarty intended to send one of the teens, Foday Kevin Camara, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, to a two-year rehabilitation program for juvenile offenders. But McKeever's relatives opposed the punishment, believing it to be too lenient, and Ellison took over the case with permission from the governor. The boy, now 17, has since pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and prosecutors say they plan to keep him in prison until he is about 23.
Questions are now surfacing over Ms. Moriarty's decision earlier this year to charge Officer Rondregan with second-degree murder.
In July, state troopers intercepted Cobb's car on Interstate 94 in Minneapolis. During the traffic stop for driving without taillights on, officers determined Cobb was subject to arrest for allegedly violating a restraining order against his ex-girlfriend, officials said.
Body camera footage showed Officer Rondregan, who is white, and another officer reaching into the vehicle to try to restrain Mr. Cobb, a 33-year-old black man. Almost immediately, Mr. Cobb's vehicle appeared to lurch forward and Officer Rondregan fired his weapon twice. The officers were thrown to the ground and the car sped away, coming to a stop about a quarter mile away. Mr. Cobb was shot in his torso and died at the scene.
Officer Rondregan's attorney, Mr. Madell, said the officer's use of force was lawful, saying he believed he and his partner were at risk of serious injury or death when he fired.
According to court filings, Moriarty's office hired an expert on police use-of-force issues who, based on preliminary evidence, said the officer may have acted lawfully. Because he suggested that this was the case, we stopped working with Moriarty.
Ms Moriarty said the charges against Officer Rondregan were justified. She added that she decided a use-of-force expert was not needed after prosecutors concluded that the members acted contrary to their training for such situations.
Marvina Haynes, who heads an advocacy group that fights wrongful convictions, said the prosecution of Officer Rondregan sent a powerful message. “It's important to let law enforcement know that this is not the Wild West, this is not a barbaric battlefield,” she says.
The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association issued a statement calling the case a “wrongful prosecution” and calling on the governor to recommit the case to the attorney general. Governor Walz said he also has concerns. Six of Minnesota's eight members of Congress (including two Democrats) criticized the prosecution.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said the incident confirmed many officers' long-held views about Moriarty.
O'Hara acknowledged the strained relationship with top prosecutors, saying, “They already believed she would overcharge cops and undercharge someone committing a violent crime.” Ta. “All the officers are talking about it.”
T. Anansi Wilson, a professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law who heads the Center for Black Lives and Law Research, said he was skeptical when he first heard Moriarty talk about criminal justice overhaul as a candidate. Ta.
Still, he said he has come to admire her determination to follow her conscience despite the growing backlash.
“This is the first time I've ever had a prosecutor proactively say, 'What's going to happen to all the people I'm going to put in prison?'” he said. “They took Black Lives Matter and made it real.”