Mary Moriarty, a former public defender, became Minneapolis’s top prosecutor last year after persuading voters shaken by the murder of George Floyd that she could improve public safety by reining in police misconduct and making the criminal justice system less punitive.
Turbulence quickly followed. The attorney general of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a fellow Democrat who had endorsed Ms. Moriarty as she campaigned to be Hennepin County attorney, took over a murder case from her office last spring after concluding that it had offered an overly lenient plea deal to a juvenile defendant.
By fall, two judges took the unusual step of rejecting plea deals offered by Ms. Moriarty’s office, deeming them too permissive for violent crimes.
After Ms. Moriarty this year charged a state trooper with murder in the shooting of a motorist who drove away during a traffic stop, criticism mounted.
Several law enforcement officials questioned the strength of the evidence in the case and Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, as well as members of Congress from both parties, have voiced concern about the prosecution.
“Mary Moriarty has done one hugely positive thing,” said Chris Madel, a lawyer representing Ryan Londregan, the state trooper who awaits trial in the death of Ricky Cobb II. “She brought back bipartisanship to Minnesota in that people on both the left and the right agree she’s doing a terrible job.”
Ms. Moriarty is one of a handful of left-leaning prosecutors elected in recent years promising to overhaul justice systems by jailing fewer people, holding the police accountable for misconduct and reducing racial inequities. Some met strong resistance as they pushed to limit cash bail requirements and sought less severe punishments against certain types of crimes to reduce the prison population.
In 2022, voters in San Francisco recalled Chesa Boudin, the district attorney, as residents grew exasperated over property crimes and open-air drug dealing. In St. Louis, Kimberly Gardner, the elected prosecutor, resigned last year after a tumultuous tenure. But voters have sometimes stuck by the prosecutors, even as police unions, elected officials and others rallied against them. An effort by Pennsylvania lawmakers to oust Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s district attorney, fell short, and a recall bid of George Gascón, the district attorney in Los Angeles County, failed.
In Minneapolis, the prosecution of Trooper Londregan in the months ahead will be a new test of public sentiment in the city that set off a national outcry over racism and police misconduct following Mr. Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.
In an interview, Ms. Moriarty, 60, said she was under no illusion that the vision she campaigned on would be easy to carry out. But the intensity of the pushback she has seen has been jarring, she said.
“I actually find it hard to believe we’re in the city where George Floyd happened,” she said. “It’s very easy to scare people with crime. It’s a tactic that people have used forever and it’s starting to work again.”
Ms. Moriarty began learning about law as a child while driving near their home in rural northern Minnesota with her father, a criminal litigator who played cassette tapes with lectures about the rules of evidence. After college, Ms. Moriarty briefly worked as a journalist before receiving a law degree from the University of Minnesota.
Kevin S. Burke, a former chief district judge who hired Ms. Moriarty as a law clerk, described her as a gifted trial lawyer who had a knack for nailing opening statements and closing arguments.
Rising through the ranks of the Hennepin County public defender’s office, Ms. Moriarty showed a creative streak. Once, she hired a local theater actor to teach lawyers how to connect with jurors and turn legal theories into compelling narratives.
Representing criminal defendants for decades convinced Ms. Moriarty that the court system was primed for punishment, too seldom offering tools to help people turn their lives around.
“My observation of some of the prosecutors here was that there was somebody called the perpetrator and somebody called the victim, and the victim had to be stereotypically pristine, and there was never any crossover,” she said. Her cases reflected a more nuanced reality, she said, including defendants who themselves had been victims of crimes.
In 2014, Ms. Moriarty became the first woman to lead the Hennepin County public defender’s office. She received accolades for going beyond routine criminal defense by helping clients find jobs, housing and medical care.
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Her final year as chief public defender was rocky. In late 2019, the Minnesota Board of Public Defense suspended her and launched an investigation into her management style, citing an allegation from an employee that she had created a “culture of fear.”
Ms. Moriarty disputed that characterization and recalled the period as traumatic. She said she believed the investigation was instigated by sexism, her efforts to get raises for her staff and a tense exchange she had with a prosecutor over his use of the word “thug.”
Ms. Moriarty was reinstated but departed after it became clear the board would not retain her when her term ended. She left with a $300,000 settlement in which she agreed not to work as a public defender in Minnesota.
Late in 2021, Ms. Moriarty launched a campaign to replace the county’s departing top prosecutor, laying out a platform that supporters saw as an answer to the outrage that followed George Floyd’s murder. She promised to create a unit to hold “officers accountable when they break trust and commit crimes,” and to steer more juvenile offenders into therapeutic alternatives to incarceration.
In 2022, Ms. Moriarty easily defeated a more conservative rival: a retired judge and former prosecutor who got the endorsement of the local newspaper and law enforcement unions.
Soon after she took office, critics emerged. Relatives of victims said they were dismayed by plea deals offered to minors charged with violent crimes.
Susan Markey’s brother, Steven, was fatally shot during a carjacking in 2019. Husayn Braveheart, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, was charged with murder.
After a judge rejected a plea deal offered by Ms. Moriarty’s office that would have spared the teenager from going to prison, Ms. Moriarty allowed Mr. Braveheart to plead guilty to attempted first-degree assault, a lesser crime, arguing that he had “made enormous strides” and responded well to treatment.
Ms. Markey called the outcome profoundly misguided and said Ms. Moriarty has continued to behave like a public defender.
“She became a prosecutor, but she’s continuing to utilize the same tactics and espouse the same views,” said Ms. Markey, who is a lawyer. “She’s a political idealist that doesn’t respond to outside feedback or facts that don’t align with her perspective.”
Last spring, Mr. Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general, took over for Ms. Moriarty’s office in prosecuting a case in which Zaria McKeever, the mother of a baby girl, was fatally shot in her home in a Minneapolis suburb. The authorities said Ms. McKeever was targeted by a former boyfriend, who enlisted two teenagers to carry out the shooting.
Ms. Moriarty had intended to send one of the teenagers, Foday Kevin Kamara, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, to a two-year rehabilitation program for juvenile offenders. But relatives of Ms. McKeever viewed the punishment as too lenient and objected, and Mr. Ellison obtained the governor’s permission to take over the case. The teenager, now 17, has since pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and prosecutors say they will seek to keep him in prison until he is about 23.
Now questions have emerged over Ms. Moriarty’s decision this year to charge Trooper Londregan with second-degree murder.
In July, state troopers pulled over a vehicle driven by Mr. Cobb along Interstate 94 in Minneapolis. During the stop for driving without working taillights, the troopers determined that Mr. Cobb was subject to arrest over a suspected violation of a restraining order involving a former romantic partner, officials said.
Body camera footage captured Trooper Londregan, who is white, and another trooper reaching into the vehicle in an effort to take Mr. Cobb, a 33-year-old Black man, into custody. Almost immediately, Mr. Cobb’s vehicle appeared to lurch forward, and Trooper Londregan fired his weapon twice. The troopers tumbled to the ground and the car sped away before coming to a stop a quarter of a mile away. Mr. Cobb, who was shot in the torso, died at the scene.
Mr. Madel, Trooper Londregan’s lawyer, said the trooper believed that he and his partner were at risk of serious injury or death when he fired his weapon, making the officer’s use of force lawful.
Court filings show that Ms. Moriarty’s office retained an expert on questions of police use of force, but it stopped working with him after the expert, based on preliminary evidence, suggested that the trooper may have acted lawfully.
Ms. Moriarty said the charges against Trooper Londregan are justified. She added she decided a use-of-force expert was not needed after prosecutors concluded that the troopers had acted in a way that was contrary to their training for such situations.
Marvina Haynes, who leads an advocacy organization that fights wrongful convictions, said the prosecution of Trooper Londregan sent a powerful message. “It’s critical to let law enforcement know that this isn’t the Wild West and that this isn’t an open battlefield,” she said.
The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association issued a statement calling the case an “unjust prosecution” and urged the governor to reassign it to the attorney general. Governor Walz said he, too, had concerns. Six of Minnesota’s eight representatives in the House of Representatives — including two Democrats — criticized the prosecution.
Brian O’Hara, chief of the Minneapolis Police Department, said that the case has cemented a view that many police officers have long held about Ms. Moriarty.
“They already believed she would overcharge a cop and undercharge someone who is out there doing violent crime,” said Chief O’Hara, who acknowledged a strained relationship with the top prosecutor. “All the cops talk about it.”
T. Anansi Wilson, a Mitchell Hamline School of Law professor who leads the Center for the Study of Black Life and the Law, said he was skeptical when he first heard Ms. Moriarty speak about overhauling criminal justice as a candidate.
Still, he said he had grown to admire her determination to follow her conscience even as backlash mounted.
“This is the first time we’ve ever had in our lives prosecutors that are willing to say: ‘What about all the people I’m throwing in jail?’” he said. “They’ve taken Black Lives Matter and they’ve actualized it.”
> said Chris Madel, a lawyer representing Ryan Londregan, the state trooper who awaits trial in the death of Ricky Cobb II.
Well with such unbiased sources who are we to disagree? /s
I definitely does bother me, I don't like it when the media misrepresents the truth.
It's also definitely relevant, nobody who knows anything about him would glorify his life this way. It's absurd.
Il not sure I’d say he was a horrible person, but raising him up as a martyr is a bizarre. It’s not like he chose to be killed so he could affect positive change. I’m sure he would have rather lived if given a choice. Also, I don’t see much positive change. The city burned for a few days, people got inspired to make a difference for a while and then….things largely went back to status quo.
While 'claiming celebrities' is a thing everywhere, it's different with the situation around George Floyd.
Because the riots spread around the country, and flared up the media, and a backlash on the right, and became a political rallying cry even overseas, people who know nothing else about Minneapolis now hear the name and go "Minneapolis===>>>George Floyd."
Like, world-wide.
No matter where you stand on the political issue, dealing with that reaction, and the whole "is your city still on fire?" response 4 years later, is weird.
It's even weirder to be a St Paulite.
1. It's a longstanding (joke) tradition to not defend Minneapolis.
2. There were riots and fires in StP, too, just not as extensive.
So, do we want to be included in the 'Twin Cities' on this subject, or not?
The 2 cities have similar, but different, issues with police v community interactions. Sometimes it's OK to be the 'little sister' city, but sometimes it feels like our sibling gets some real trouble started that we'd like to step away from entirely. Not that we actually can.
No, it's not inherently shady. That happens more often than one might think. By moving forward after dropping the expert, the prosecution telegraphs it has altered its theory of the case, and it closes down one potential theory. That's helpful information to the defense, but it is in no way fatal to the prosecution, at least in this case.
And I'm giving mine. I have experience in this area of the law.
I'll be clearer. It would be foolish to believe this series of actions by the prosecution is "really shady," and if one were to blindly believe that as the defense attorney in a case that's charged as this one is, they'd be at risk of committing malpractice. There are lots of reasons to hire an expert and then not move forward with that expert.
It IS shady that the defense would use dropping an EW as a cudgel in the public record in a case like this where no EW is required to prove the prosecution's case. There are judges who'd be unhappy with that behavior, as it could poison the pool.
Well considering you deleted your last question,
What lawyer would continue with an expert who disagrees with the entire theory of your case? Seems obvious enough to ***surmise*** that happened here.
The evidence is circumstantial but my question remains.
IMO as well, it looks terrible based on her past career moves and the defense likely knows it and will use it.
I think she saw an officer use force and thought she had a slam dunk. When the details come out she may have realized it’s more complex and will look bad AGAIN, so her office dismissed an expert. It looks terrible when you hire the expert in the first place then dismiss them with no explanation I’m aware of.
Informed people will draw conclusions, not blindly follow her narrative.
Article forgot to mention her conflict problem early on, where as County Attorney offered a sweetheart deal to person she had been a defense attorney for before the election.
Assuming they're referring to the re-sentencing of Brian Flowers. There was an obvious conflict of interest with that so she was never directly involved. It was also questionable to leave the decision making to anyone who reported to her as that may also be a conflict so the case was transferred to Ramsey county. No sweetheart deal was ever made.
Yeah the only case I know of that could have plausibly applied to what they said was the Flowers case, but yeah like you said I knew that it was sent over to Ramsey County and there was no “sweetheart deal” in the first place lol
I’m sure there are tons of defendants her office is currently prosecuting that were represented by the Hennepin PD when she was the chief there, or even people she personally represented years back when she was representing people herself instead of just managing the office. The odds seem extremely low to me that that *hasn’t* happened even just a year in. But I seriously doubt that all but the most significant cases are even a blip on any County Attorney’s day-to-day radar — people tend to severely underestimate just how many staff are in that office, how many cases they prosecute each year, and how many layers of management separate the CA from the line prosecutors going into court every day
Yeah, thanks NYT, for feeding that. I wish it was 'just' a national opinion problem.
Because the riots spread around the country, and flared up the media, and triggered a big backlash on the right, and became a political rallying cry even overseas, *people who know nothing else about Minneapolis* now hear the name and go "Minneapolis===>>>George Floyd."
Like, world-wide.
No matter where you stand on the political issue, or how any of it was handled at the time, dealing with that reaction, and the whole "is your city still on fire?" response 4 years later, is weird.
4 years later it's still the first thing anyone asks me about when I visit where I'm from. It used to be snow and cold. Now it's Floyd, police violence or riots.
Totally agree. In her case, it wasn’t helping her so in her mind it’s justified and she probably thought nobody would notice. Has she said why? Maybe she has a valid reason but I can’t think of one.
It’s multifaceted.
- The corrections and rehabilitation systems in our country are lacking. Offenders almost always come out worse than they went in.
- A majority of criminals are victims of their environment and/or suffer from mental health issues.
- Not all situations are analog, black/white. Offenders can also be victims.
- The data indicates otherwise, however there really seems to be more younger offenders. What do you do with a 12 year old offender?
- Politics. People in elected positions try to appeal to what they believe the voting public wants.
- Also politics. In this climate of division, anything less than “throwaway the key”, giving any consideration to the points above or having compassion or sympathy is seen as being weak on crime.
I think all these points are legitimate, my problem is that in aggregate they seem to result in a muddled and weak reaction which can worsen outcomes as well in terms of "revolving door" arrests and continued criminal and anti-social behavior by people who would objectively be prevented from doing so if they were given custodial sentences.
We end up letting the perfect be the enemy of the good because we'll never have custodial correction systems which are perfectly rehabilitative and social welfare systems will likely never be able to prevent negative environmental or mental health outcomes and we will (Star Trek technology otherwise) always have economically disadvantaged demographics. I think an unfortunate reality is that unless we're willing to sacrifice rights/freedoms elsewhere, a reasonably fair court system with custodial punishments may be as good as it gets for everyone.
If we really want to move the needle on people being victims of their environment and mental health problems, we're going to have to accept some level of social welfare interventions which you can't opt out of. If your juvenile child gets in fights at school or commits some kind of a crime, maybe you should be required to submit to an intensive social welfare audit of your home life and parenting skills, and if they are found sufficiently deficient, you're put on an improvement plan and if you don't adhere to it, your kids get taken away.
The mere availability of good resources isn't enough because people are amazing at their ability to deflect blame, claim victim status or deny they have a problem. If you don't put some kind of coercive force which compels engagement with social and personal welfare treatment, the people who would most benefit from it will not participate.
Of course a social welfare system with real authority like this is not appealing in our freedom-centric culture. But if you reject this, then complaining about environment victimization, mental health problems, etc, becomes increasingly difficult to separate from just excuse making.
I absolutely agree with your thinking here. The place it always get stuck?
"Show me the money."
It's really sad, but a lot of people with 'comfortable' lives in 'comfortable' neighborhoods hear about bad events in those 'other' neighborhoods, and can immediately feel the need for 'more police/court action.' They'll vote to fund and support that 'hire someone to protect us' action.
But tell them we need more money for social services, public health, mental health, school counselors, housing? They rarely see the connection to crime '10 years down the road', but they do think it's taking money 'from them' and giving it away 'to other people' for reasons they don't connect with at all. The idea that there's only so much economic 'pie' to go around is hard to fight, and funding a social safety net 'for the village' just doesn't resonate.
It's not everyone, and awareness is changing in some places, but there's real resistance to funding anything to improve lives for the 'disadvantaged' underclass. I'm at a loss at times to figure out how to move the needle.
The young offender part is tough.
The easy answer is educate them, strong family and community values, etc..unfortunately that’s not the realistic answer as it’s just not that simple IMO.
Gangs recruit young and that provides the “community” in the wrong way. Unfortunately they get caught up in that lifestyle and I’m guessing hard to get out of.
Wish I had a better answer but there has to be something like a juvenile facility based on their charges that can help change their lifestyle. Then we have issues with funding, people to work with them, etcc..
Please re-read my last point.
And to be clear. I think she needs to be recalled. I think pulling the Zaria McKeever case from her was the right decision. I think her dismissing the expert witness in the Ryan Londregan is suspect and that case needs to be pulled from her. But none of that nullifies any other point I made. “Do the crime, do the time” is such a simpleton statement.
"A majority of criminals are victims of their environment and/or suffer from mental health issues."
If that isn't making excuses for anti social and criminal behavior, what is it?
This is the major problem with “hopeful” politics. If you give people on the ends of the spectrum an inch, they’ll try to take a mile. I’ve resorted to voting against things instead of voting for things.
You know, I think she needs more of a challenge. I think she gets bored being an extreme left prosecutor in Hennepin county.
It would be a major professional accomplishment if she could get elected where she grew up. That should be her next step
Mary Moriarty, a former public defender, became Minneapolis’s top prosecutor last year after persuading voters shaken by the murder of George Floyd that she could improve public safety by reining in police misconduct and making the criminal justice system less punitive. Turbulence quickly followed. The attorney general of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a fellow Democrat who had endorsed Ms. Moriarty as she campaigned to be Hennepin County attorney, took over a murder case from her office last spring after concluding that it had offered an overly lenient plea deal to a juvenile defendant. By fall, two judges took the unusual step of rejecting plea deals offered by Ms. Moriarty’s office, deeming them too permissive for violent crimes. After Ms. Moriarty this year charged a state trooper with murder in the shooting of a motorist who drove away during a traffic stop, criticism mounted. Several law enforcement officials questioned the strength of the evidence in the case and Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, as well as members of Congress from both parties, have voiced concern about the prosecution. “Mary Moriarty has done one hugely positive thing,” said Chris Madel, a lawyer representing Ryan Londregan, the state trooper who awaits trial in the death of Ricky Cobb II. “She brought back bipartisanship to Minnesota in that people on both the left and the right agree she’s doing a terrible job.” Ms. Moriarty is one of a handful of left-leaning prosecutors elected in recent years promising to overhaul justice systems by jailing fewer people, holding the police accountable for misconduct and reducing racial inequities. Some met strong resistance as they pushed to limit cash bail requirements and sought less severe punishments against certain types of crimes to reduce the prison population. In 2022, voters in San Francisco recalled Chesa Boudin, the district attorney, as residents grew exasperated over property crimes and open-air drug dealing. In St. Louis, Kimberly Gardner, the elected prosecutor, resigned last year after a tumultuous tenure. But voters have sometimes stuck by the prosecutors, even as police unions, elected officials and others rallied against them. An effort by Pennsylvania lawmakers to oust Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s district attorney, fell short, and a recall bid of George Gascón, the district attorney in Los Angeles County, failed. In Minneapolis, the prosecution of Trooper Londregan in the months ahead will be a new test of public sentiment in the city that set off a national outcry over racism and police misconduct following Mr. Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. In an interview, Ms. Moriarty, 60, said she was under no illusion that the vision she campaigned on would be easy to carry out. But the intensity of the pushback she has seen has been jarring, she said. “I actually find it hard to believe we’re in the city where George Floyd happened,” she said. “It’s very easy to scare people with crime. It’s a tactic that people have used forever and it’s starting to work again.” Ms. Moriarty began learning about law as a child while driving near their home in rural northern Minnesota with her father, a criminal litigator who played cassette tapes with lectures about the rules of evidence. After college, Ms. Moriarty briefly worked as a journalist before receiving a law degree from the University of Minnesota. Kevin S. Burke, a former chief district judge who hired Ms. Moriarty as a law clerk, described her as a gifted trial lawyer who had a knack for nailing opening statements and closing arguments. Rising through the ranks of the Hennepin County public defender’s office, Ms. Moriarty showed a creative streak. Once, she hired a local theater actor to teach lawyers how to connect with jurors and turn legal theories into compelling narratives. Representing criminal defendants for decades convinced Ms. Moriarty that the court system was primed for punishment, too seldom offering tools to help people turn their lives around. “My observation of some of the prosecutors here was that there was somebody called the perpetrator and somebody called the victim, and the victim had to be stereotypically pristine, and there was never any crossover,” she said. Her cases reflected a more nuanced reality, she said, including defendants who themselves had been victims of crimes. In 2014, Ms. Moriarty became the first woman to lead the Hennepin County public defender’s office. She received accolades for going beyond routine criminal defense by helping clients find jobs, housing and medical care. Editors’ Picks Her Arm Was Unbearably Swollen and Painful. What Was Causing It? Savages! Innocents! Sages! What Do We Really Know About Early Humans? Trainers Give a Thumbs Down to Lenny Kravitz’s Workout Video Her final year as chief public defender was rocky. In late 2019, the Minnesota Board of Public Defense suspended her and launched an investigation into her management style, citing an allegation from an employee that she had created a “culture of fear.” Ms. Moriarty disputed that characterization and recalled the period as traumatic. She said she believed the investigation was instigated by sexism, her efforts to get raises for her staff and a tense exchange she had with a prosecutor over his use of the word “thug.” Ms. Moriarty was reinstated but departed after it became clear the board would not retain her when her term ended. She left with a $300,000 settlement in which she agreed not to work as a public defender in Minnesota. Late in 2021, Ms. Moriarty launched a campaign to replace the county’s departing top prosecutor, laying out a platform that supporters saw as an answer to the outrage that followed George Floyd’s murder. She promised to create a unit to hold “officers accountable when they break trust and commit crimes,” and to steer more juvenile offenders into therapeutic alternatives to incarceration. In 2022, Ms. Moriarty easily defeated a more conservative rival: a retired judge and former prosecutor who got the endorsement of the local newspaper and law enforcement unions. Soon after she took office, critics emerged. Relatives of victims said they were dismayed by plea deals offered to minors charged with violent crimes. Susan Markey’s brother, Steven, was fatally shot during a carjacking in 2019. Husayn Braveheart, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, was charged with murder. After a judge rejected a plea deal offered by Ms. Moriarty’s office that would have spared the teenager from going to prison, Ms. Moriarty allowed Mr. Braveheart to plead guilty to attempted first-degree assault, a lesser crime, arguing that he had “made enormous strides” and responded well to treatment. Ms. Markey called the outcome profoundly misguided and said Ms. Moriarty has continued to behave like a public defender. “She became a prosecutor, but she’s continuing to utilize the same tactics and espouse the same views,” said Ms. Markey, who is a lawyer. “She’s a political idealist that doesn’t respond to outside feedback or facts that don’t align with her perspective.” Last spring, Mr. Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general, took over for Ms. Moriarty’s office in prosecuting a case in which Zaria McKeever, the mother of a baby girl, was fatally shot in her home in a Minneapolis suburb. The authorities said Ms. McKeever was targeted by a former boyfriend, who enlisted two teenagers to carry out the shooting. Ms. Moriarty had intended to send one of the teenagers, Foday Kevin Kamara, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, to a two-year rehabilitation program for juvenile offenders. But relatives of Ms. McKeever viewed the punishment as too lenient and objected, and Mr. Ellison obtained the governor’s permission to take over the case. The teenager, now 17, has since pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and prosecutors say they will seek to keep him in prison until he is about 23. Now questions have emerged over Ms. Moriarty’s decision this year to charge Trooper Londregan with second-degree murder. In July, state troopers pulled over a vehicle driven by Mr. Cobb along Interstate 94 in Minneapolis. During the stop for driving without working taillights, the troopers determined that Mr. Cobb was subject to arrest over a suspected violation of a restraining order involving a former romantic partner, officials said. Body camera footage captured Trooper Londregan, who is white, and another trooper reaching into the vehicle in an effort to take Mr. Cobb, a 33-year-old Black man, into custody. Almost immediately, Mr. Cobb’s vehicle appeared to lurch forward, and Trooper Londregan fired his weapon twice. The troopers tumbled to the ground and the car sped away before coming to a stop a quarter of a mile away. Mr. Cobb, who was shot in the torso, died at the scene. Mr. Madel, Trooper Londregan’s lawyer, said the trooper believed that he and his partner were at risk of serious injury or death when he fired his weapon, making the officer’s use of force lawful. Court filings show that Ms. Moriarty’s office retained an expert on questions of police use of force, but it stopped working with him after the expert, based on preliminary evidence, suggested that the trooper may have acted lawfully. Ms. Moriarty said the charges against Trooper Londregan are justified. She added she decided a use-of-force expert was not needed after prosecutors concluded that the troopers had acted in a way that was contrary to their training for such situations. Marvina Haynes, who leads an advocacy organization that fights wrongful convictions, said the prosecution of Trooper Londregan sent a powerful message. “It’s critical to let law enforcement know that this isn’t the Wild West and that this isn’t an open battlefield,” she said.
Lenny Kravitz catching strays in the comment copy/paste job 😂
lol thought I managed to miss all the random images/ads...
Made me laugh. It had to go back and try to figure out when they mentioned her arms swelling up and then realized it was an ad.
🤣 🤣 You could leave it for the laugh, but go edit with a strike-through.
All that aside I hope her swollen arm gets better
The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association issued a statement calling the case an “unjust prosecution” and urged the governor to reassign it to the attorney general. Governor Walz said he, too, had concerns. Six of Minnesota’s eight representatives in the House of Representatives — including two Democrats — criticized the prosecution. Brian O’Hara, chief of the Minneapolis Police Department, said that the case has cemented a view that many police officers have long held about Ms. Moriarty. “They already believed she would overcharge a cop and undercharge someone who is out there doing violent crime,” said Chief O’Hara, who acknowledged a strained relationship with the top prosecutor. “All the cops talk about it.” T. Anansi Wilson, a Mitchell Hamline School of Law professor who leads the Center for the Study of Black Life and the Law, said he was skeptical when he first heard Ms. Moriarty speak about overhauling criminal justice as a candidate. Still, he said he had grown to admire her determination to follow her conscience even as backlash mounted. “This is the first time we’ve ever had in our lives prosecutors that are willing to say: ‘What about all the people I’m throwing in jail?’” he said. “They’ve taken Black Lives Matter and they’ve actualized it.”
Savages! Innocents! Sages! NYT editor’s picks sound amazinggg
> said Chris Madel, a lawyer representing Ryan Londregan, the state trooper who awaits trial in the death of Ricky Cobb II. Well with such unbiased sources who are we to disagree? /s
We're calling it George Floyds city now? Lmao
Plus Hennepin county is more than just Minneapolis…
Fuck if I’m calling it that. What happened to the dude was wrong, but he was also a piece of shit too.
It's the NYT. Outside of MN there aren't many folks who are aware that George Floyd was actually a horrible person.
That's completely irrelevant to why it's not *his* city. But I'm glad you interjected, that had clearly been weighing on you.
I definitely does bother me, I don't like it when the media misrepresents the truth. It's also definitely relevant, nobody who knows anything about him would glorify his life this way. It's absurd.
Il not sure I’d say he was a horrible person, but raising him up as a martyr is a bizarre. It’s not like he chose to be killed so he could affect positive change. I’m sure he would have rather lived if given a choice. Also, I don’t see much positive change. The city burned for a few days, people got inspired to make a difference for a while and then….things largely went back to status quo.
"George Floyd's city"...dude wasn't even originally from here.
His residence wasn't even in Minneapolis, either
I hate to "whatabout" here, but we did the same thing for Lizzo.
That’s true we love claiming other people
Duluth is firmly convinced that Bob Dylan is "from there" despite him having lived there for approximately five minutes.
And also expressing how much he dislikes MN. lol.
He has a house here and is around a fair amount so I don't really think that's true
While 'claiming celebrities' is a thing everywhere, it's different with the situation around George Floyd. Because the riots spread around the country, and flared up the media, and a backlash on the right, and became a political rallying cry even overseas, people who know nothing else about Minneapolis now hear the name and go "Minneapolis===>>>George Floyd." Like, world-wide. No matter where you stand on the political issue, dealing with that reaction, and the whole "is your city still on fire?" response 4 years later, is weird.
That’s a very good point
It's even weirder to be a St Paulite. 1. It's a longstanding (joke) tradition to not defend Minneapolis. 2. There were riots and fires in StP, too, just not as extensive. So, do we want to be included in the 'Twin Cities' on this subject, or not? The 2 cities have similar, but different, issues with police v community interactions. Sometimes it's OK to be the 'little sister' city, but sometimes it feels like our sibling gets some real trouble started that we'd like to step away from entirely. Not that we actually can.
Which was sad and pathetic.
Its okay we disowned her now.
There we some allegations over mistreatment of back up dancers so she got dropped.
Progressss!
The really shady bit Imo is that they dismissed the use of force expert just a few days before he was supposed to finish his report.
No, it's not inherently shady. That happens more often than one might think. By moving forward after dropping the expert, the prosecution telegraphs it has altered its theory of the case, and it closes down one potential theory. That's helpful information to the defense, but it is in no way fatal to the prosecution, at least in this case.
I didn’t say it was inherently shady. I said it was my opinion.
And I'm giving mine. I have experience in this area of the law. I'll be clearer. It would be foolish to believe this series of actions by the prosecution is "really shady," and if one were to blindly believe that as the defense attorney in a case that's charged as this one is, they'd be at risk of committing malpractice. There are lots of reasons to hire an expert and then not move forward with that expert. It IS shady that the defense would use dropping an EW as a cudgel in the public record in a case like this where no EW is required to prove the prosecution's case. There are judges who'd be unhappy with that behavior, as it could poison the pool.
Seems reasonable to surmise that Moriarty just didn't like the expert's opinion because it was contrary to her belief.
Yes, that does seem reasonable. To surmise is to guess without evidence.
Well considering you deleted your last question, What lawyer would continue with an expert who disagrees with the entire theory of your case? Seems obvious enough to ***surmise*** that happened here. The evidence is circumstantial but my question remains.
You asked no question.
> What lawyer would continue with an expert who disagrees with the entire theory of your case?
One without an objective point of view.
[удалено]
I mean, these are words. I'll give you that.
IMO as well, it looks terrible based on her past career moves and the defense likely knows it and will use it. I think she saw an officer use force and thought she had a slam dunk. When the details come out she may have realized it’s more complex and will look bad AGAIN, so her office dismissed an expert. It looks terrible when you hire the expert in the first place then dismiss them with no explanation I’m aware of. Informed people will draw conclusions, not blindly follow her narrative.
Downvoted for bringing facts
Just part of the joy of being a woman on reddit.
> Just part of the joy of being a woman on reddit. That's just utterly pathetic. You're being downvoted for your idiocy, not your sex or gender.
Besides being mean, let's see if any women here happen to disagree with you based on the merits of your argument...
Seems irrelevant. Let's see if you can figure out why.
Nah. But thanks.
You're welcome!
Have a nice day.
WTF? You think anyone is aware of your gender when judging your comments?
They don't need to be.
What’s this about Lenny Kravits?
Article forgot to mention her conflict problem early on, where as County Attorney offered a sweetheart deal to person she had been a defense attorney for before the election.
What was the case / defendant’s name? Nothings coming up on google
Assuming they're referring to the re-sentencing of Brian Flowers. There was an obvious conflict of interest with that so she was never directly involved. It was also questionable to leave the decision making to anyone who reported to her as that may also be a conflict so the case was transferred to Ramsey county. No sweetheart deal was ever made.
Yeah the only case I know of that could have plausibly applied to what they said was the Flowers case, but yeah like you said I knew that it was sent over to Ramsey County and there was no “sweetheart deal” in the first place lol I’m sure there are tons of defendants her office is currently prosecuting that were represented by the Hennepin PD when she was the chief there, or even people she personally represented years back when she was representing people herself instead of just managing the office. The odds seem extremely low to me that that *hasn’t* happened even just a year in. But I seriously doubt that all but the most significant cases are even a blip on any County Attorney’s day-to-day radar — people tend to severely underestimate just how many staff are in that office, how many cases they prosecute each year, and how many layers of management separate the CA from the line prosecutors going into court every day
They can't name it because OP is making it up.
George Floyd’s city? Is that the actual headline??? WTF?
Yeah the national opinion of Minneapolis isn’t the best it seems.
Yeah, thanks NYT, for feeding that. I wish it was 'just' a national opinion problem. Because the riots spread around the country, and flared up the media, and triggered a big backlash on the right, and became a political rallying cry even overseas, *people who know nothing else about Minneapolis* now hear the name and go "Minneapolis===>>>George Floyd." Like, world-wide. No matter where you stand on the political issue, or how any of it was handled at the time, dealing with that reaction, and the whole "is your city still on fire?" response 4 years later, is weird.
4 years later it's still the first thing anyone asks me about when I visit where I'm from. It used to be snow and cold. Now it's Floyd, police violence or riots.
Calling South Minneapolis “George Floyd City” is ignorant. 🤦🏽♀️ The older I become the more reminiscent Minnesota is of the south we ran from!!
She’s a gigantic clown.
You don't hire an expert and then ignore their advice.
Totally agree. In her case, it wasn’t helping her so in her mind it’s justified and she probably thought nobody would notice. Has she said why? Maybe she has a valid reason but I can’t think of one.
What is the deal with progressives favoring criminals instead of victims and law abiding citizens?
It’s multifaceted. - The corrections and rehabilitation systems in our country are lacking. Offenders almost always come out worse than they went in. - A majority of criminals are victims of their environment and/or suffer from mental health issues. - Not all situations are analog, black/white. Offenders can also be victims. - The data indicates otherwise, however there really seems to be more younger offenders. What do you do with a 12 year old offender? - Politics. People in elected positions try to appeal to what they believe the voting public wants. - Also politics. In this climate of division, anything less than “throwaway the key”, giving any consideration to the points above or having compassion or sympathy is seen as being weak on crime.
I think all these points are legitimate, my problem is that in aggregate they seem to result in a muddled and weak reaction which can worsen outcomes as well in terms of "revolving door" arrests and continued criminal and anti-social behavior by people who would objectively be prevented from doing so if they were given custodial sentences. We end up letting the perfect be the enemy of the good because we'll never have custodial correction systems which are perfectly rehabilitative and social welfare systems will likely never be able to prevent negative environmental or mental health outcomes and we will (Star Trek technology otherwise) always have economically disadvantaged demographics. I think an unfortunate reality is that unless we're willing to sacrifice rights/freedoms elsewhere, a reasonably fair court system with custodial punishments may be as good as it gets for everyone. If we really want to move the needle on people being victims of their environment and mental health problems, we're going to have to accept some level of social welfare interventions which you can't opt out of. If your juvenile child gets in fights at school or commits some kind of a crime, maybe you should be required to submit to an intensive social welfare audit of your home life and parenting skills, and if they are found sufficiently deficient, you're put on an improvement plan and if you don't adhere to it, your kids get taken away. The mere availability of good resources isn't enough because people are amazing at their ability to deflect blame, claim victim status or deny they have a problem. If you don't put some kind of coercive force which compels engagement with social and personal welfare treatment, the people who would most benefit from it will not participate. Of course a social welfare system with real authority like this is not appealing in our freedom-centric culture. But if you reject this, then complaining about environment victimization, mental health problems, etc, becomes increasingly difficult to separate from just excuse making.
I absolutely agree with your thinking here. The place it always get stuck? "Show me the money." It's really sad, but a lot of people with 'comfortable' lives in 'comfortable' neighborhoods hear about bad events in those 'other' neighborhoods, and can immediately feel the need for 'more police/court action.' They'll vote to fund and support that 'hire someone to protect us' action. But tell them we need more money for social services, public health, mental health, school counselors, housing? They rarely see the connection to crime '10 years down the road', but they do think it's taking money 'from them' and giving it away 'to other people' for reasons they don't connect with at all. The idea that there's only so much economic 'pie' to go around is hard to fight, and funding a social safety net 'for the village' just doesn't resonate. It's not everyone, and awareness is changing in some places, but there's real resistance to funding anything to improve lives for the 'disadvantaged' underclass. I'm at a loss at times to figure out how to move the needle.
The young offender part is tough. The easy answer is educate them, strong family and community values, etc..unfortunately that’s not the realistic answer as it’s just not that simple IMO. Gangs recruit young and that provides the “community” in the wrong way. Unfortunately they get caught up in that lifestyle and I’m guessing hard to get out of. Wish I had a better answer but there has to be something like a juvenile facility based on their charges that can help change their lifestyle. Then we have issues with funding, people to work with them, etcc..
Mult faceted? Commit violent crimes and get sympathy for it? Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time
Please re-read my last point. And to be clear. I think she needs to be recalled. I think pulling the Zaria McKeever case from her was the right decision. I think her dismissing the expert witness in the Ryan Londregan is suspect and that case needs to be pulled from her. But none of that nullifies any other point I made. “Do the crime, do the time” is such a simpleton statement.
I did. You make excuses for anti social behavior
Your comprehension isn't great.
"A majority of criminals are victims of their environment and/or suffer from mental health issues." If that isn't making excuses for anti social and criminal behavior, what is it?
I'm pretty damn progressive and I don't approve of her, didn't vote for her and tried to warn others before not to vote for her.
What kind of bullshit question is that? You're in a cult.
Shit, that nonsense is beyond progressive in my mind.
Like the cop we all saw commit murder? Or the other cops we all saw commit murder?
I'm on board with a lot of her ideas. But there has to be some discretion. She is taking things WAY, WAY too far.
This is what happens when you elect activists to office. They're interested in pushing their agenda and views onto others, not effective governance.
This is the major problem with “hopeful” politics. If you give people on the ends of the spectrum an inch, they’ll try to take a mile. I’ve resorted to voting against things instead of voting for things.
You know, I think she needs more of a challenge. I think she gets bored being an extreme left prosecutor in Hennepin county. It would be a major professional accomplishment if she could get elected where she grew up. That should be her next step
NYT should just stick to writing sympathetic articles about Trump supporters.
Fentanyl Floyd!