The Department of Justice (DOJ) is looking into whether a Minnesota prosecutor’s office is violating the Constitution by pledging to factor defendants’ skin color into plea deals.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon announced on Saturday that the DOJ will review the new policy at Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s office to see “whether the [office] is engaged in a pattern or practice of depriving persons of rights,” as described in a letter to Hennepin County. The probe adds to ongoing scrutiny of Moriarty’s policies since she came into the spotlight in April for refusing to prosecute a state official who vandalized Tesla vehicles.
The letter came in response to an April memo from Moriarty’s office that says prosecutors negotiating plea deals “should consider the person charged as a whole person, including their racial identity and age” and address “racial disparities” in the justice system.
The memo pairs the racial and age considerations with an overall strategy to give defendants “a nonincarceration option” based on prosecutors’ “individual analyses.”
“While these factors should not be controlling, they should be part of the overall analysis,” reads the memo.
The DOJ’s letter called the policy “discriminatory.” It also said Dhillon will lead “a comprehensive review of all … policies and practices” at the office “that may involve the illegal consideration of race in prosecutorial decision-making.”
“The use of ‘racial identity’ in prosecutorial decisions, including whether to depart from Sentencing Guidelines, is another example of how deeply Critical Race Theory has penetrated society,” Cornell law professor William A. Jacobson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Jacobson founded the Equal Protection Project, an initiative by the conservative Legal Insurrection Foundation.
“What once was a fringe academic theory has expanded from higher education into society, including the legal system,” Jacobson said.
Moriarty’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF, nor has it responded to several other DCNF inquiries since April about Moriarty’s policies. A spokesperson told FOX9 KMSP that it “will cooperate with any resulting investigation and we’re fully confident our policy complies with the law.”
Dhillon previously told the DCNF that she would return the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to its “traditional, core functions” such as combatting race-preferential policies. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Employers that discriminate against people on the basis of race and use quotas in hiring that are in no way justified,” Dhillon said in an April interview with the DCNF’s Katelynn Richardson. “Public sector employers will be getting inquiries from us, and so that’s a new priority that wasn’t being done before.”
Jacobson told the DCNF that shutting down Moriarty’s plea deal program would be a good step in the DOJ’s mission.
“The concept of giving someone a lighter sentence based on race is offensive and unlawful in its own right,” the professor said. “It is even worse because by granting a sentencing departure based on race the prosecutors are denying others a departure based on race. It’s straight up racism, and we hope the U.S. Department of Justice puts an end to it.”
Moriarty was also accused of being soft on crime in April for declining to charge a fiscal policy analyst for Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’ administration who keyed six Teslas in an attack on CEO Elon Musk’s company. Moriarty allowed the state official to pay victims restitution to avoid felony charges, telling reporters that “a felony conviction destabilizes” a person’s life and can therefore lead to “recidivism.”
“We are very much focused on public safety,” Moriarty said. “Now … there are some people who want people to have felony convictions. That’s fine if that’s what they want, but that is not about public safety.”
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