“Racial disparities harm our community, lead to distrust, and have a negative impact on public safety,” the policy says. “Prosecutors should be identifying and addressing racial disparities at decision points, as appropriate.”
May 11, 2025, 12:00 PM
More whining from Minnesota’s grievance machine, the Center of the American Experiment
In recent days, Hennepin County’s progressive county attorney, Mary Moriarty, announced a policy that line prosecutors should consider race in their charging and prosecution decisions; the policy was leaked to the press (by a bilious pocket of resistance, no doubt). Of the policy, Moriarty said:
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said a new policy asking her prosecutors to consider the racial identity of defendants is constitutional and a necessary corrective to address unconscious bias in a justice system that has been historically racist.
“There are many people in this country that have pretended that race doesn’t play a factor in arrest, charging and prosecution,” Moriarty said. “Every piece of research has suggested otherwise.”
The “many people” undoubtedly includes the aforementioned bilious pocket of resistance.
Former State Public Defender John Stuart echoed Moriarty’s remarks in a letter to the editor that earned Stuart a Spotty™. Stuart was involved in Minnesota Supreme Court Task Force studies over the years that are foundational support for Moriarty’s policy to include race as a consideration.
Quoting from the Star Tribune article:
“There is nothing that’s unconstitutional about this,” Moriarty said. “It would be a constitutional issue if the policy actually said, ‘Let’s say you have a Black defendant and a white defendant, we are telling you to treat the Black defendant in a different way.’ That would be unconstitutional. That is not what this policy is about.”
She added, “I’m not entirely sure how we could correct all of the racial disparities we have in the system unless we’re acknowledging it head on.”
David Zimmer, also quoted in the article, a factodum at that middle-brow grievance machine, the Center of the American Experiment, said in effect, We shouldn’t see race, and by the way, far more Blacks are charged, convicted, and sentenced because they do way more criming. That’s a slight paraphrase, but not much of one.
Even controlling for Zimmer’s whining claim that Blacks do more criming, there is still a material racial bias against Black citizens in law enforcement and the courts. Here’s another quote from the Star Tribune article:
Perry Moriearty is an associate law professor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in criminal justice and is a member of Minnesota’s Clemency Review Commission. She and Moriarty — similar names, no relation — were colleagues at the University of Minnesota Law School and worked on cases together. She contends Zimmer’s line of thinking is antiquated. [The professor is being charitable. Ed.]
“It’s frustrating that they’re a think tank still making that argument,” she said. “Studies have shown at every decision point in this system from whether to arrest, to prosecute, to not divert, to charge, to detain and hold and place on bail, at plea negotiations, at every stage there are documented [racial] disparities.”
Moriearty said thousands of those studies have taken into account varying crime rates in certain neighborhoods and socioeconomic factors such as income levels, education and family dynamics and still found racism in the criminal justice system — especially against Black and Indigenous people. [Emphasis added]
Because of that, she said, race has been a historical factor in prosecutorial decisionmaking, it just was never acknowledged.
“We know human beings by virtue of having human brains are considering race and they’re generally doing it unconsciously,” she said. “Being explicitly race conscious can help decisionmakers recognize their automatic tendencies to rely on racial categories and, in some cases, stereotypes, even when they’re not trying to.”
The comeback of the grievance machine’s sloganeering Zimmer is:
“They’re taking the blindfold of Lady Justice off,” he said, “and looking at the defendant differently.”
Yeah, Professor, don’t try to confuse us with facts.
We don’t see race is a racist statement. Full stop. Even on the occasions where the speaker doesn’t mean to be racist, it is still racist. Everybody sees race, whether they claim to or not, and we all have unconscious biases.
Mary Moriarty is just telling her prosecutors to be consciously aware of these biases and not operate on the basis of them.
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