Star Tribune
Families of victims outraged over last-minute plea deals by Hennepin County Attorney
Sherrice Barnett listened in disbelief as Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty explained that a teenager charged in her son’s murder would be spared prison.
“I couldn’t breathe,” Barnett recalled. “I said, ‘I just got to get up out of here.’ I never would have imagined in a million years that it would have went that way.”
She assumed the only reasonable outcome for the killing of her son Derrell Freeman, 27, was significant time behind bars — as suggested by state guidelines.
Barnett echoes a group of crime victims’ families who say they feel retraumatized by what appears to be a pattern with Moriarty’s administration. The families are told that instead of seeking prison, prosecutors want probation. Notice of the abrupt change is urgent. It comes days before a scheduled plea hearing, during which families say it sounds like the prosecutor advocates more for the defendant than them or the victim.
“It’s a trend definitely because of Mary Moriarty. She’s still playing public defender — the only thing is, that’s not her role anymore,” said Catherine Markey, a veteran attorney whose son was also gunned down and killed by teens.
Moriarty has 30 years of experience working on the other side of the courtroom defending the accused. She served as chief public defender for the county before winning election and transitioning this year to top prosecutor in Minnesota’s largest public law office.
In an interview Friday, Moriarty said her new role “is completely different and that’s clear to me.” She campaigned as a reformer focused on equity and rehabilitation, not punishment, especially for youth.
“I think it takes a lot of courage actually to act upon what you say you’re going to do,” she said. “I knew we would get a lot of pushback.
“But if you’re truly going to make change, if you truly are about your values, and you want to have integrity, and you believe in research and look at the data, these are the right decisions and I stand by them.”
With Freeman’s killing, two 17-year-olds charged with murder in the north Minneapolis shooting in May are being treated very differently based on their individual histories, Moriarty said. The office is seeking adult prison for Jordan McFarland, but Monte Wise would receive up to two years of treatment at a youth detention facility and be on probation until he’s 21.
She said her office looks at each case to figure out if a person is safe in the community. Accountability and public safety don’t always translate to prison, she said.
“All of us have been conditioned to believe that the value that we place on a loved one’s life is the length of the prison sentence that they get.”
Moriarty is indicative of the progressive prosecutor movement that looks to reduce mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal justice system, said Steve Zeidman, professor at City University of New York School of Law.
“You’re seen as being overly lenient as opposed to trying to correct past wrongs,” he said.
The impact of these prosecutors is limited, Zeidman said, but most apparent in individual cases where people are unhappy with the result.
Pushback comes not just from families, but sometimes within their own office or from state officials. Look to San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia for progressive prosecutors who are recalled, don’t seek re-election or face impeachment.
‘It’s not right’
Former Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said a large metropolitan county “in the best of times is dealing with very high volume of cases.” So when a plea agreement is reached, often at the last minute, it moves quickly.
“I know it is very frustrating for a victim or victim’s families to feel a lack of control over what happens,” said Gaertner, who now works as a white-collar defense attorney. “Their voice is important, but ultimately it’s the prosecutor’s job to decide how a case should be resolved with an eye toward public safety.”
Under the Minnesota Crime Victim Bill of Rights, families have a right to be notified and object to proposed pleas — though there is no mandated timeline for notification.
Parents of a 15-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by a relative for three years said they feel tricked by the office. They went for years hearing prosecutor Raina Urton say she was seeking eight years in prison for defendant Devin Hultin. At the last minute, a new attorney was on their case telling them and the judge how Hultin should get probation. He was sentenced Sept. 13 to probation and 180 days in the workhouse.
Urton, who didn’t agree with the offer, asked to be removed from the case.
“She walked away because she knows what happened was wrong,” said the teen’s mother, whom the Star Tribune is not naming to protect the victim’s identity. “She was fighting for us. She was fighting for our daughter.”
Nancy Capersen’s 25-year-old daughter Kailey died in 2021 from pain pills laced with fentanyl. The dealer, Jesse Lietzau, was charged with third-degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of 25 years.
Prosecutors asked for probation and up to 240 days in jail. At the plea hearing last week, Lietzau admitted that he knew the pills had fentanyl in them but didn’t tell Kailey. Caspersen was in the courtroom with signs saying, “Why are drug dealers getting away with murder?”
“It ain’t fair. It’s not right. She’s my only child,” Caspersen said through tears while anxiously touching a necklace with her daughter’s fingerprint.
“It makes me feel like she didn’t matter to these people.”
Emotion v. Reform
When families object to lenient sentences, or feel wronged by the short notice of new agreements, there is little recourse for them.
Some reach out to local media or petition Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to take over prosecution of the case. That’s what happened with Zaria McKeever’s murder.
Her family sounded the alarm over the abrupt change for two teenage brothers accused of killing McKeever during a home invasion last November. Prosecutors initially wanted the teens to stand trial for murder as adults. But, in exchange for their testimony against the man accused of orchestrating the attack, Moriarty offered them probationary plea deals. A prosecutor voluntarily removed herself from the case in protest, then left the office.
The older brother accepted the offer, while the younger brother — and alleged gunman — had his case intercepted by Ellison, and it’s still pending.
Moriarty said Ellison’s interference set a dangerous precedent. Other families have asked for similar treatment.
“[Moriarty] is fumbling another case yet again and again and again,” McKeever’s sister Tiffynie Epps said. “Something needs to happen. … It’s not about it going our way. It’s about going the right way.”
The family of Stephen Markey, shot to death by a pair of teenagers during a 2019 carjacking, blasted Moriarty for a last-minute probationary plea for one of the teens after the other got nearly 22 years in prison. They pleaded with Ellison to take the case.
But Ellison announced last week that he wouldn’t intervene, saying elected county attorneys are accountable to voters for their decisions.
Catherine Markey filed a complaint with Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Crime Victim Justice Unit.
She said she’s not a fan of prisons, but she’s terrified about murder cases resulting in probation, and frequently without due notice to families.
Sea change
Most of these cases originated under former County Attorney Mike Freeman when families were told the office would seek prison time.
Zeidman, the CUNY professor, said there should be better communication with families, but ultimately Moriarty shouldn’t feel bound by promises made in the past administration when she was elected for embracing a different philosophy.
“That’s a sea change in the office,” Moriarty said. “And I understand why families are upset. I understand why some in the community are upset because we have not done a good job of having this conversation.”
The system doesn’t offer victims much besides punishment. Moriarty said the office lacks alternatives like restorative justice. That involves offenders participating in dialogue with victims and others affected by their actions.
“We’re working towards building that out because families do deserve more,” she said. “They deserve more even if a person goes to prison.”
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and her daughter were among the throngs Friday as President Joe Biden delivered the apology that many Indigenous Americans thought would never come.
“I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of literally having our children stolen from our communities,” said Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. “It’s a powerful first step towards healing.”
Hundreds of boarding schools operated in the 19th and 20th centuries, separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to assimilate to European ways. Many children were abused, and at least 973 died, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Other Minnesotans reacted similarly to Flanagan, saying they welcomed the apology but that additional action is needed to help Indigenous people move forward.
Anton Treuer, a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, wrote in a newsletter that the apology was “a welcome first step on the journey to healing.”
“There is no way to truly right historical injustices for the children buried at Carlisle, Haskell, and other schools, but these words set a new tone for the country and will help heal the anguish so many Natives have carried for so long,” Treuer wrote. “It gives me hope that we can come together to reconcile and heal our troubled nation.”
Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, the first Indigenous woman to serve in the state Senate, called Biden’s apology encouraging.
“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign nations affected by these past systems,” Kunesh said in a statement. “This dark period of American history must be remembered and taught.”
“I have done everything in my power to remedy this situation, and it continues to get more and more violent by the day,” Moturi wrote. “There have been numerous times when I’ve seen Sawchak outside and contacted law enforcement, and there was no response. I am not confident in the pursuit of Sawchak given that Sawchak attacked me, MPD officers had John detained, and despite an HRO and multiple warrants — they still let him go.”
On Friday, five City Council members sent a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara expressing their “utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley went on to allege that police had failed to submit reports to the County Attorney’s Office despite threats being made with weapons, and at times while Sawchak screamed racial slurs. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
The council members also contend in their letter that the MPD told the County Attorney’s Office that police did not intend to execute the warrant for “reasons of officer safety.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference at MPD’s Fifth Precinct, O’Hara said police had been working to arrest Sawchak since at least April, but “no Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.” The chief pointed out that Sawchak is mentally ill, has guns and refuses to cooperate “in the dozens of times that police officers have responded to the residence.”
O’Hara put aside the option to carry out “a high-risk warrant based on these factors [and] the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect.” The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside his home, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
ROCHESTER – The Federal Transit Administration has green-lighted an $85 million grant supporting the development of the city’s planned Link Bus Rapid Transit system.
The FTA formally announced the grant on Friday during a ceremonial check presentation outside of the Mayo Civic Center, one of the seven stops planned for the bus line. The federal grant will cover about 60% of the project’s estimated $143.4 million price tag, with the remaining funds coming from Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private development project in state history.
Set to go live in 2026, the 2.8-mile Link system will connect downtown Rochester, including Mayo Clinic’s campuses, with a proposed “transit village” that will include parking, hundreds of housing units and a public plaza. The bus line will be the first of its kind outside the Twin Cities — with service running every five minutes during peak hours.
“That means you may not even need to look at a schedule,” said Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA. “You can just show up at your transit stop and expect the next bus to come in a short time. That is a game changer and a life-transformational experience in transit for those people who are using it and relying on it.”
The planned Second Street corridor is already one of the busiest roads in Rochester, carrying more than 21,800 vehicles a day, and city planners have talked for years about ways to reduce traffic congestion in the city’s downtown. Local officials estimate that the transit line, which will rely on a fleet of all-electric buses, will handle 11,000 riders on its first day of operation and save eight city blocks of parking.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 people gathered on Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the project shows Rochester is thinking strategically about how it handles growth.
“If you just plan the business expansion, and you don’t have the workforce, you don’t have the child care, the housing or the transit, it’s not going to work very well as a lot of communities across the nation have found,” Klobuchar said.
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