Mary Moriarty, County Attorney
In which I respond to Mary's announcement.
Some years ago, I was sitting in my car somewhere in Minneapolis listening to the news on the radio. The jury in the trial of Derick Chauvin, the murderer of George Floyd, had been in deliberation, and was expected to come back soon. Everyone had been speculating on how long that would take. I remember surveying The Intertubes for information on how long juries usually took to come to a verdict in a homicide case. I was amazed at the wide range of answers from a diversity of experts. Undaunted by this vagueness of basic knowledge, I gathered some numbers, calculated an average, and as it turns out, that average was very close to the number of days and hours after the resting of the case before the jury had given its first signal that they would be done.
So I was sitting in the car somewhere in Minneapolis listening to the news on the radio, waiting for the George Floyd murder case verdict. You all know that this would be a moment that would then go on to live in infamy.
On the radio was a reporter interviewing Mary Moriarty, who at the time was, or recently had been, the chief public defender for the county (IIRC), and an expert on various matters having to do with justice and stuff. She was talking about the killing of black men as an epidemic, and the need for further accountability by the justice system, etc. etc. Or something. I don’t really remember exactly what she was talking about, but I do remember thinking, “She should be our County Prosecutor. I wonder if she’s thinking about running for County Prosecutor?”
A little later later in historical time, Mary ran for county prosecutor. A year or so after that, after Mary had won that election, I told her my earlier thought, that I had heard her interview and thought she should run. “Were you thinking of running for County Attorney at that time?” I asked her. She thought for a moment. “Nope, definitely not. That was not on my mind at all at that time.”
So much for my mind reading abilities. But ten points for predicting the future!
I was very much involved in the electoral process at the time, as I usually am, and I got to see two things up close: 1) the people, the grassy roots of our party, were very excited about Mary’s candidacy, and 2) the old guard political hacks, the generally more centrist and even conservative Democrats, bless their hearts, were excited about some other guy, a bit of a stuffed shirt, who had made moves in earlier years to sidle up to the progressive base out here in the County’s hinterland (where I live), but had failed to impress.
I got the impression that the mainstream Democrats in my neck of the woods liked the stuffed shirt guy because he would look and feel the part of tough-on-crime Democrat, so perhaps they did not have to. Meanwhile, Moriarty promised real reform, and seemed to have the courage and knowledge of scientific approaches to justice to bring at least some of that reform to bear on our troubled county.* The main political group I’m affiliated with outside of the Democratic Party, Indivisible West Metro, interviewed all but one of the many candidates running for that office, and after that, enthusiastically endorsed Mary Moriarty for Hennepin County Attorney.
Moriarty ran an effective campaign, and she won with a whopping 16 point margin.
Then the hate started. I expected hate from the usual suspects, the right wing, the jerks, the asshats. But there was also hate, usually more subdued but still dripping, from many of my fellow Democratic friends, who really really wanted stuffed shirt guy.
Meanwhile, Mary took the job, made major reforms, reduced crime and at the same time reduced incarceration levels, and so on and so forth. She replaced an earlier guy who held for a time the national record among county prosecutors for the rate at which he put black men in prison, and Mary ended up being the best county prosecutor we’ve ever had, even if some of my Democratic colleagues — benighted by their own political blinders — think differently.
So that was good, on balance, but it has been difficult. The police union, the newspapers, and the politicians that are supposed to be working for public safety have pushed back on the very reforms we are all supposed to want.
But that entire time, Mary Moriarty was with us. She attended every Indivisible event that we held to which we invited her, giving us informative updates on what was going on in the County Attorney’s office. I think she may have been the most loyal to us of all of our electeds, and we have some very loyal and caring electeds in our purview. And every time she spoke with us, and for that matter, every time she and I chatted in any context, I learned something important about criminal justice. We shared an interest in data and science-driven methods. My academic background had brushed years ago on criminology, for somewhat odd reasons, and I’ve maintained an interest in crime statistics. (I suggest that if this is of interest to you, that you check out Jeff Asher’s substack, which is also one of Mary’s favorites.)
Today, a little while ago, Mary announced that she will not be running for re-election. I won’t represent her reasons here, you can hear her very clear statement in this video:
Thank you Mary, and may your future be like your past but the rest of the world better to you.
*For those who don’t know, Minneapolis lies within in Hennepin County, and while I formerly lived in Minneapolis, and for a while very near the site of George Floyd’s murder, I currently live a couple-few suburbs out from the city.