Moriarty latest directive: ‘consider race’ in plea bargains
The policy
As of this morning, assistant county attorneys in the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office (HCAO) have been directed by official policy to consider the race of criminal defendants when entering into plea negotiations.
Kare 11’s Lou Raguse broke the story last Friday after a person within the HCAO sent him a copy of the policy that was issued last week.
The directive is stunning in its blatant disregard of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Courts have routinely ruled that considering race as a factor in any decision-making, including whether to offer a plea deal, is a violation of the Constitution.
But that hasn’t stopped Mary Moriarty from directing her attorneys to do just that — all under the faulty premise that such consideration would reduce “racial disparities” in our criminal justice system.
According to Kare 11, Jill Hasday, a constitutional law professor at the University of Minnesota, opined that Moriarty’s newest policy would almost certainly be shot down if challenged in court. Hasday pointed out the duplicity of the policy, which tells the HCAO staff to both consider the race of defendants, while “not taking race into account.”
Hasday told Kare 11:
“And the problem for the drafters of this policy is, once you take race into account, it doesn’t really matter what else you say. The policy is going to be struck down.”
The racial disparity narrative
One of the ongoing narratives this new policy perpetuates is the premise that our criminal justice system is creating “racial disparities.” Despite decades of effort on the left to forge this narrative into an unassailable truth, the data disputes the claim.
In our back-to-back studies of the issue, Center of the American Experiment demonstrated conclusively that while there are disproportionate levels of black Minnesotans in our criminal justice system compared to their proportion of the general population, those disproportions are the direct result of massive disproportions in criminal offending, not a biased system. In addition, the studies showed that once identified as an offender, white offenders were more likely to receive more certain and more consequential outcomes.
The consequence
No, Moriarty’s latest policy won’t improve racial “disparities” in Hennepin County’s criminal justice system. In fact, if not challenged, it is more likely to further degrade the public safety of minority communities by subjecting them to more criminal offenders receiving less consequences for their actions.
As I’ve written before, if Moriarty was the county attorney in a quiet and peaceful rural county she wouldn’t represent such a threat to Minnesotans. However, when Minneapolis (the county seat for Hennepin) represents just seven (7) percent of the state’s population while it accounts for 30% of all aggravated assaults, 46% of all murders, 56% robberies, and a staggering 91% of all carjackings in the state (per 2024 BCA Crime Data Explorer), the misguided policies promoted by Moriarty rightfully become a significant concern for all Minnesotans.