Minnesota’s new carjacking statute: a valuable tool underutilized in Hennepin County

The problem

Analysis by Center of the American Experiment reveals that criminal justice officials in Hennepin County are failing to use the new state statute and enhanced penalties specifically designed to help reduce violent carjackings. Given that 81% of all carjackings and 87% of all armed carjackings in the entire state occur in Hennepin County, that’s a problem.

A valuable new tool

In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature created statute 609.247 to address the rise in violent carjackings and provide criminal justice officials with a focused statute addressing the crime rather than treating carjacking as just another robbery.

Additionally, the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission (MSGC) reviewed the new law and elected to respond to the scourge of carjacking by enhancing the severity level of the crime.

First-degree carjacking (armed with a dangerous weapon) was given a severity level of nine, making it a presumptive prison commitment crime punishable by an 86-month prison sentence for a first offense. Second-degree carjacking (dangerous weapon implied) was given a severity level of seven, making it a presumptive stayed sentence of 36 months for a first offense. Third-degree carjacking (under any other circumstance) was given a severity level of six, making it a presumptive stayed sentence of 21 months for a first offense. 

These enhancements elevated the penalty for armed and unarmed carjacking one severity level above similar robberies. This was a significant victory for those valuing a consequential criminal justice system.

The new law and enhanced penalties offered county attorneys and the courts a significant tool to incapacitate violent offenders — an effort that would serve to enhance the other rationales for punishment: deterrence, rehabilitation, and retribution.

For that to occur, however, justice officials need to make use of the new statute and enhanced penalty, not avoid them.

Unfortunately, the Hennepin County Attorney and the Hennepin County District Court have failed to utilize the statute or impose an enhanced penalty as intended, and this failure has only exacerbated the public safety concerns in Hennepin County.

An explosion in carjackings in the early 2020s

Around the turn of this decade, primarily in the metro area, Minnesota began seeing a dramatic rise in carjackings. Unfortunately, given that carjackings were charged as a subset of robbery, the tracking of these crimes across the state didn’t occur with any uniformity. This made quantifying the problem with any accuracy difficult.

In 2020, local reporting estimated that carjackings in Minneapolis had increased from 104 in 2019 to 401 in 2020. In 2021, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety reported that Minneapolis had recorded 655 carjackings, and the entire state had recorded 779, a record high in both Minneapolis and the state.

Anecdotal stories of violent carjackings as reported in the local media helped provide context for the overwhelming data. A family in Minnetonka was unloading groceries while parked in their driveway when they were carjacked and assaulted. The vice chair of the Democratic Party in Minneapolis was violently carjacked outside her North Minneapolis home. An elderly woman was violently carjacked in an Edina grocery store parking lot in broad daylight. The boldness and violence seemed to be growing as the frequency of carjackings increased. 

The rise in carjackings, combined with a mass exodus of local law enforcement officers following intense anti-police activism in the early 2020s, led the U.S. Attorney’s Office to boldly step up the effort to blunt the violence, following through with multiple federal prosecutions of violent carjacking incidents.

Social justice advocates will point out that carjacking incidents have been falling in Minnesota since their high point in 2021 and argue that enhanced penalties were not needed. However, this belies the fact that a combination of enhanced law enforcement efforts and the widely publicized federal crackdown on carjacking in Minnesota were both implemented in 2022. Those enhanced law enforcement and federal prosecutorial efforts undoubtedly reduced the number of carjacking incidents in Minnesota. Certainly, more than the social justice efforts led by a reluctance to use the state’s new carjacking statute have.

While the Minnesota Legislature was slow to respond to the carjacking crisis, it eventually passed a new carjacking statute during the 2023 session designed to address the problem. Enhanced penalties attached to the statute gave prosecutors a big stick — but they would have to use it to realize any benefit.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s response

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty is a “true believer” in the social justice narratives of our day — that we are a mass incarceration society, that our criminal justice system is creating racial disparities, and that we need to dismantle traditional systems and replace them with alternative forms of justice, to name a few. 

She, like other progressive prosecutors, recognized the power she could wield and the “social justice” impact she could make as county attorney, by exercising the massive amount of discretion given to our public prosecutors. There is no clearer example of this than her office’s use of charging discretion to almost universally reject the use of the carjacking statute and associated enhanced penalties.

Shortly after the MSGC enhanced the penalty for carjacking on August 1, 2023, I learned from a law enforcement source that a directive had been issued within the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office (HCAO) to avoid using the new carjacking statute due to the enhanced penalty.

I made a data practices request to the HCAO for all communication or directives related to charging decisions involving the new carjacking statute. I received a single document in the form of an email from an Assistant Hennepin County Attorney to a few Minneapolis Police Commanders, alerting them to the new carjacking statute as part of what appeared to be a routine discussion on legal updates. 

I also made a data practices request to the HCAO for all data on the number of carjacking cases submitted for charging consideration and the number of cases charged using the new carjacking statute. Getting a response was difficult, but after nearly nine months of communication, including threats to bring legal action, the HCAO did comply with my request.

What I learned from the data is deeply troubling. Carjacking offenders are not being prosecuted, convicted, or sentenced in Hennepin County consistent with the new carjacking statute and enhanced penalties passed in 2023. 

The data 

I analyzed carjacking incident data from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s Crime Data Explorer website, carjacking case data provided by the HCAO pursuant to a data practices request, Hennepin County District Court (HCDC) data via the Minnesota Court Records Online (MCRO) website, and Department of Corrections data on in custody prison inmates.

The following is an analysis of these data sources covering the first full year Minnesota’s carjacking law was in effect, from August 1, 2023, through July 31, 2024.

MN BCA Carjacking Incident Data (attempted and/or completed):

• Total number of carjacking incidents in Minnesota: 429. Total number in Hennepin County: 349 (81% of state total)
• Carjackings involving a firearm in Minnesota: 265 (62% of all carjackings). Carjackings involving a firearm in Hennepin County: 231 (87% of all carjackings in the state involving a firearm)
• Victims injured in carjackings in Minnesota: 152 (57% of all carjackings). Victims injured in carjackings in Hennepin County: 116 (73% of all carjacking injuries in the state)
• Race of carjacking offenders in Minnesota: 77% black, 6% white, 17% other. Race of carjacking offenders in Hennepin County: 80% black, 4% white, 16% other
• Race of carjacking victims in Minnesota: 50% white, 30% black, 20% other. Race of carjacking victims in Hennepin County: 54% white, 29% black, 17% other

Hennepin County Attorney Carjacking Case Data

• 105 carjacking incidents submitted by law enforcement for consideration for charges (30% of all carjacking incidents reported to the MNBCA)
• 63 carjacking incidents resulted in offenders being charged with some type of offense

Of these 63 incidents:

• 17 were adult cases involving 114 potential criminal offenses, of which seven cases listed 16 identified carjacking offenses to be considered
• 46 were juvenile cases involving 299 potential criminal offenses, of which six cases listed 14 identified carjacking offenses to be considered
• 13 incidents of carjacking resulted in carjacking charges issued, according to the HCAO.

This equates to:

• 4% of all carjackings incidents in Hennepin County
• 12% of carjacking incidents submitted by law enforcement in Hennepin County
• 20% of all carjacking incidents in which criminal charges were filed in Hennepin County

Hennepin County District Court Data

Juvenile cases

A significant number of juvenile cases were sealed, making any conclusive analysis of the outcomes of these cases impossible. However, a review of the case records I could access told the same worn-out story of an ineffective juvenile court system. The following is an incomplete list of some of the more egregious outcomes of cases involving carjackings:

• A guilty plea to aggravated robbery involving a firearm. The sentence was “continued without adjudication,” and the defendant was put on probation for 2 years.
• A guilty plea to aggravated robbery involving a firearm. The sentence was adjudicated, and the defendant was put on probation until the age of 21.
• Case dismissed despite the defendant’s fingerprints on the interior door handle of the carjacking victim’s car.
• A defendant with 22 offenses listed, was “adjudicated delinquent” of two counts of aggravated robbery, while two others involving a firearm were dismissed.  He was sentenced to 3 1/2 years of supervised probation and “treatment.”
• A defendant with 12 offenses listed involving a strong-armed carjacking was allowed to plead guilty to a single count of simple robbery, dismissing the other counts. He was sentenced to six months of supervised probation.
• A defendant who displayed a handgun in the forceful carjacking of a victim, was allowed to plead guilty to fleeing the police in the carjacked car, pled down to a misdemeanor. He was sentenced to 12 months of supervised probation.
• A defendant, involved in the armed carjacking of an Uber driver where a gun was put to the driver’s head, was adjudicated delinquent for damage to property and 5th-degree misdemeanor assault. He was sentenced to 12 months of supervised probation.

Adult cases

I reviewed each of the 17 adult “carjacking” cases in which a criminal charge was filed. The cases involved 14 defendants — two were juveniles prosecuted as adults, two had their cases dismissed because the U.S. Attorney stepped in to prosecute them, and two of the cases remain “pending.”

A review of the initial charges, amended charges, court dispositions, and sentences of these 14 defendants revealed the following:

• The Hennepin County Attorney issued a total of 8 counts of carjacking against just seven adult court defendants. 
• Six of the eight carjacking counts were later amended to robbery or something lesser at the time of a plea bargain or dismissed outright. One remains pending.
• Just one 3rd-degree carjacking count resulted in an actual conviction for carjacking. The judge, however, sentenced the defendant to 90 days in the Hennepin County Workhouse and declared that if the defendant successfully completed probation, the conviction would be reduced to a misdemeanor.
• All other defendants were allowed to plead guilty to other offenses, such as robbery, assault, or auto theft, even though each case involved actual carjacking elements — many involving a firearm or other dangerous weapon.
• One of those defendants was originally charged with attempted murder and 1st-degree carjacking for stabbing a man during a violent carjacking at a gas station. The defendant was allowed to plead guilty to assault while the carjacking charge was dismissed. According to Department of Corrections records, he will serve just 75 months in prison before his anticipated release.
• Another defendant, a juvenile male convicted as an adult for his involvement in seven cases involving armed robberies over three years (from the details available, most of them appear to be armed carjackings) — was allowed to plead guilty to seven armed robberies and had all carjacking and assault charges dismissed. The judges sentenced him to a total of 591 months in prison, but each of the sentences runs concurrently rather than consecutively. According to Department of Corrections records, he will serve approximately 61 months in prison for these seven carjacking-related armed robberies.
• Another defendant, one involved in the violent carjacking of the family unloading groceries at their Minnetonka home, had an extraordinary case involving consideration of 50 criminal offenses, including 1st-degree carjacking, burglary, and auto theft. He was charged with a total of 14 counts, including 1st-degree carjacking, aggravated robbery, burglary, and auto theft. He was allowed to plead guilty to an amended complaint charging robbery, burglary, and auto theft, while dismissing the carjacking charge. According to the Department of Corrections, he will serve just 36 months in prison before his anticipated release.
• Yet another defendant committed an armed carjacking of a female teacher as she arrived at school in Minneapolis. The defendant pointed a gun at her and told her “Don’t move or I’m going to kill you.” He then forced the woman into the car and began driving off with her, before she was able to jump out.  The defendant was originally charged with 1st-degree carjacking but was later allowed to plead guilty to an amended charge of robbery and was sentenced to 57 months in prison. According to the Department of Corrections, he is expected to serve approximately 31 months in prison before his anticipated release date.

Summary

In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature passed a law to address the scourge of carjackings that had befallen the state. The Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission followed up by enhancing the penalty for this new carjacking law, giving authorities a significant tool to incapacitate these violent offenders.

In the case of Hennepin County, which is sadly home to 81% of the state’s entire number of carjackings, the county attorney and courts have failed to utilize the powerful tools at their disposal.

Law-abiding Minnesotans will continue to pay the price for this failure.

(Note: statewide data on the use of the new carjacking statute by the 86 counties other than Hennepin was not yet available at the time of this reporting.)