Justice Department plans to investigate prosecutor's office in
Minnesota's most populous county
[May 06, 2025]
By STEVE KARNOWSKI
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an
investigation of the prosecutor’s office in Minnesota’s most populous
county after its leader directed her staff to consider racial
disparities as one factor when negotiating plea deals.
Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican lawyer who's the new director of the
agency's Civil Rights Division, announced the investigation in a social
media post Saturday night.
Dhillon posted a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi to Hennepin
County Attorney Mary Moriarty, dated Friday. It said the investigation
would focus on whether Moriarty's office “engages in the illegal
consideration of race in its prosecutorial decision-making.”
The letter, released to The Associated Press by the Justice Department
on Monday, said the investigation was triggered by a new policy adopted
by the county attorney that has come under conservative fire in recent
weeks.
That policy, which was leaked to local media last month, says racial
disparities harm the community, so prosecutors should consider the
“whole person, including their racial identity and age,” as part of
their overall analysis.
Moriarty's office got the Justice Department letter via email on Monday,
the county attorney's spokesperson, Daniel Borgertpoepping, said in a
statement.
“Our office will cooperate with any resulting investigation and we’re
fully confident our policy complies with the law,” he said.
Moriarty, a former public defender, was elected in 2022 as the
Minneapolis area and the country were still reeling from the death of
George Floyd, a Black man, under the knee of a white officer. She
promised to make police more accountable and change the culture of a
prosecutors' office that she believed had long overemphasized punishment
without addressing the root causes of crime.
[to top of second column]
|
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty explains her progressive
approach to prosecutions, June 19, 2024, at her office in
Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave, File)
The federal inquiry will be a “pattern or practice” investigation,
Bondi's letter said. That's the same kind of probe that the Justice
Department conducted of the Minneapolis Police Department following
the murder of Floyd nearly five years ago.
That process led to an agreement in January between the Biden
administration's Justice Department and the city on a consent decree
to mandate changes to the police department's training and
use-of-force policies that are meant to reduce racial disparities in
policing. However, the agreement still requires approval by a
federal judge.
After taking office later in January, President Donald Trump’s
administration froze civil rights litigation and suggested it may
reconsider the Minneapolis agreement and a similar one with
Louisville, Kentucky.
Trump took a step further last month when he signed an executive
order directing the attorney general to review all ongoing federal
consent decrees with law enforcement agencies and “modify, rescind,
or move to conclude such measures that unduly impede the performance
of law enforcement functions.”
The Justice Department had already asked the court to pause its
decision on the Minneapolis agreement while Dhillon reviews the
matter. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson has given the agency until
May 21. Louisville's consent decree is similarly on hold.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
