MINNEAPOLIS – Voters in Minnesota’s largest county elected Mary Moriarty as their top prosecutor after she promised to deliver change in a community where George Floyd was murdered and a nationwide reckoning on racism in the criminal justice system was born.
After Moriarty, a former public defender, became the Hennepin County Attorney in January 2023, she vowed to make police more accountable and change the culture of an office she believes had long overemphasized punishment without addressing the root causes of crime.
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Her election came as the Minneapolis area was still reeling from the 2020 murder of Floyd by a police officer and the resulting protests and prosecutions of police. Moriarty's two immediate predecessors had been in office for a combined 31 years, and her promises of dramatic changes had the backing of the state Democratic party, community leaders and voters hungry for a new approach.
But only 18 months after beginning her four-year term, Moriarty faces fierce backlash, even among some former supporters. Her critics have questioned her decisions to seek lighter sentences for violent crimes in some cases and to divert more people to programs rather than jail.
Moriarty has had public spats with the state's Democratic governor, and in some cases, she has been caught between groups with divergent political views.
She bore heavy criticism from police officers, local officials and some progressive activists after she charged a white state trooper for the killing of a Black man last summer, only to later reverse course and drop the charges.
Leaders with the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association had waged a high-profile campaign urging Tim Walz, the state’s Democratic governor, to reassign the prosecution away from Moriarty. This month, the association filed an ethics complaint against Moriarty, alleging she knowingly made false statements about the case, a claim she has denied.
Even as Moriarty remains committed to her approach, she acknowledged that some of her initial support has dwindled.
“There have been times I’ve asked myself, is this the city where George Floyd was murdered? But at the same time, if I look historically, any time there’s been progress, there’s always backlash,” Moriarty said. “There’s nothing different about this than when people in the past have tried to change systems that have been in place for decades.”
Moriarty was elected among of a wave of progressive district attorneys who took office following the murder of Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests. In Oregon, voters in May replaced a progressive district attorney with a centrist candidate backed by police groups who vowed to be tough on crime in the Portland area amid frustrations over violence tied to homelessness and drug use. That same month in California’s Bay Area, Alameda County supervisors set a recall election for a district attorney who ran on a platform of offender rehabilitation and police accountability.
The crop of progressive prosecutors promised a more thoughtful approach to holding people accountable, but for many it has been a challenge that has left them vulnerable to complaints that they have endangered public safety.
Moriarty, a former chief public defender for the county, was elected over a former judge with nearly 58% of the vote.
Some of her former supporters now say her approach has gone too far. Matt Pelikan, a former Democratic candidate for attorney general who donated to Moriarty’s campaign, said the office under Moriarty has taken a permissive approach, resulting in some criminals getting released from custody, only to quickly reoffend.
“I supported Mary because I believed, and I still believe that the old formula wasn’t working,” Pelikan said. “But I think Mary has gone further and not abided by the goals of that office, which are safety and justice.”
Under Moriarty’s leadership, more cases have been subject to “diversion,” which often involves referring someone who has committed a crime to a program they must complete so they can avoid jail time.
Jared Mollenkof, who worked with Moriarty as a public defender, said she has made juvenile prosecutions fairer by restructuring the county’s approach to prosecuting juveniles, emphasizing alternatives to incarceration.
“I think that there has been a real refocusing to allow prosecutors to make offers that were previously unavailable to them, either due to office policy or just for monitoring perceptions of what was acceptable,” Mollenkof said.
In 2023, the number of youth cases diverted by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office increased by 36% compared to 2022. For adult cases, that number increased by 81% in 2023 compared to 2022.
Moriarty’s office said initial data shows that those who have participated in diversion programs are less likely to recidivate than those cases that aren’t diverted. Critics say Moriarty has downplayed the concerns of crime victims and damaged public trust in her office.
Martha Holton Dimick, the former judge who Moriarty defeated in 2022, said Moriarty is making decisions based on gripes she developed as a career public defender battling with attorneys from the same office she now leads.
“I told people on the campaign trail that this was her revenge tour," Dimick said.
In an interview, Mike Freeman, Moriarty's predecessor, declined to speak in detail about Moriarty’s performance but said he thinks some of her juvenile justice initiatives had “gone too far” and that the office had lost a number of experienced attorneys since she was elected.
One of those attorneys is Gretchen Gray-Larson, who worked at the county attorney’s office for 33 years. She said she is against “draconian” drug laws and favors a progressive approach to prosecution. But last July, she decided to retire, in part, because she didn’t want to work for Moriarty. She said her colleagues who have stayed have been overwhelmed by the departures and a stifling atmosphere.
“People are afraid to talk,” Gray-Larson said. “The morale is horrible.”
According to internal staff figures obtained at the end of June, Larson is one of over 150 staffers to have left their positions with the office since the month Moriarty was elected. Overall employment at the office had risen by 21 staffers, although that figure includes administrative positions other than attorneys.
Now, Moriarty said she is delivering changes that have forced some prosecutors to interrogate uncomfortable truths about past failures.
“This is true of many prosecutors who were in office for decades, there is sometimes a difficulty in looking at your career and what you’ve done and acknowledging that you have done harm.”
Among Moriarty's supporters, there is a sense that she has been kneecapped by entrenched leaders at the city and state levels.
Chaz Neal, 47, grew up in Minneapolis and, until a few months ago, resided in one of the city’s higher crime neighborhoods. Neal is Black, a political conservative and has a criminal record. Despite his right-leaning views, he supports Moriarty because of his experiences navigating the criminal justice system.
“I feel like if people look at her policies and read them, they will see that she is for the people,” Neal said.
Moriarty said she will run for reelection and plans to keep pursuing changes, regardless of any backlash.
“There are people, who have been critical, who are concerned about their own political ambitions and kind of pandering to whatever group they think will help them,” Moriarty said. “I have not done that."