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Defense: Moriarty ignored expert’s opinion in charging trooper
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty moved ahead with charging Londregan with murdering Ricky Cobb “without using” the use-of-force expert.
MINNEAPOLIS — In a 52-page court filing, the defense attorney for Minnesota State Trooper Ryan Londregan wrote that the prosecution’s hand-picked use-of-force expert believes Londregan did not commit a crime when he fatally shot Ricky Cobb during a traffic stop in July 2023.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty charged Londregan with 2nd-degree murder in Cobb’s death on the shoulder of I-94 despite the opinion expressed by expert witness Jeffrey Noble, attorney Chris Madel wrote in his filing. Now, Madel is staging a legal battle to ensure they receive all the documentation related to Noble’s opinion.
“A reasonable officer in Trooper Londregan’s position would have perceived that Trooper [Brett] Seide was in danger of death or great bodily harm, specifically from being dragged by the vehicle as it continued to accelerate,” Madel quoted Noble as telling seven members of the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office on Oct. 13, 2023, after they began reviewing the case.
Noble, a former police officer from California, is a national use-of-force expert who often testifies for prosecutors. The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office retained him for their manslaughter case against former officer Jeronimo Yanez in the death of Philando Castile. In that case, Noble testified that Yanez’s use of force was unreasonable in the traffic stop shooting, but the jury disagreed and acquitted Yanez in the 2017 trial.
In the Londregan case, Moriarty publicly wrote on Sep. 2023, “We have already identified a use-of-force expert – the type of expert who examines evidence in nearly every case where an officer uses force. Their independent review is a critical part of our process. We selected this expert even before we received the completed investigation so that we could move forward with our work immediately upon receipt of the file.”
But when Moriarty filed charges against Londregan in January, any mention of a force expert’s opinion was absent from the criminal complaint.
When asked about it, Moriarty said, “We were able to determine that charges were appropriate without the use of an expert.”
Instead, Moriarty focused on the training the state troopers received when explaining her decision to charge.
“They are not allowed to shoot at a car that is driving away. They are not allowed to shoot someone to prevent a car from driving away. They’re only allowed to use deadly force if it will prevent great bodily harm or death to their partner or somebody else,” Moriarty said in January. “The training they received, very extensive training by the State Patrol was that shooting someone was not likely to stop the person to stop the person from driving. So shooting someone was not an appropriate or necessary use of deadly force in this situation.”
In October, however, Noble told Moriarty’s team that Trooper Londregan’s use of force was reasonable to prevent his partner from being dragged by Cobb’s vehicle, according to the court filing by his defense team.
“Mr. Noble offered that, if Trooper Londregan shot Mr. Cobb simply to prevent him from fleeing, he would deem the use of force to be unreasonable. However, Mr. Noble stated that his opinion would change if Trooper Londregan shot Mr. Cobb because he feared for Trooper Seide’s safety,” a statement received by the defense from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said.
That summary of that conversation between Noble and the Hennepin County Attorneys office is referred to in the court filing as “October 13 Noble Statement,” and is quoted throughout the memorandum written by defense attorney Madel.
Madel wrote in his filing that the October 13 statement indicates “certain HCAO representatives attempted to persuade Noble to change his opinion to support a decision to prosecute.”
The defense attorney also wrote in the memorandum that during the Oct. 13 conversation, Moriarty’s team argued to Noble that Londregan should have instead done nothing or encouraged Trooper Seide to remove himself from Cobb’s vehicle.
“Mr. Noble opined that, in this case, a reasonable officer in Trooper Londregan’s position would have viewed the threat to Trooper Seide to be real. Mr. Noble stated, ‘The danger was not hypothetical,’” an excerpt from the October 13 Noble Statement read.
Noble was prepared to offer his opinion that Trooper Seide should not have reached into Cobb’s car or attempted to pull Cobb out, according to the memorandum. But Noble explained that even if Trooper Seide’s actions were unreasonable and put himself in danger, “Trooper Londregan still was authorized to reasonably respond to the danger to Trooper Seide.”
After Madel filed the memorandum Monday morning, the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association (MPPOA) issued a statement that read in part:
“The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office hired an expert to educate them, the Court, and the jury. That expert – who was also formerly used to prosecute other Minnesota police officers – found Trooper Ryan (Londregan) acted lawfully to save his partner. Now, Moriarty’s office is disregarding and trying to hide that truth from the public. This is what happens in a political prosecution. Trooper Ryan is a hero who saved his partner’s life. Anyone who cares about the rule of law needs to care about this case – it’s an unjust prosecution. How many more folded flags need to go to families of law enforcement?”
MPPOA also stated that the court filings make it clear Moriarty was determined to charge Londregan with a crime and no one, even an expert secured by her office, was going to get in the way.
Motions from both the state and defense will be argued at a court hearing March 21.
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Johnson, who played hockey at Hibbing and UMD, died after his neck was cut by an opponent’s skate during a pro game in Sheffield, England.
SHEFFIELD, UK — It’s been one year since the death of American hockey player Adam Johnson, whose neck was fatally cut by an opponent’s skate during a game in Sheffield, England.
A man remains under investigation after being arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. Thousands of fans witnessed the grisly collision last Oct. 28 and there’s video of it but authorities have not announced a decision about whether they will bring charges.
There could be a variety of explanations, from delays in digital forensic analyses to weighing the potential difficulty in proving criminality for “on-the-ball” incidents like this one.
Johnson and the Nottingham Panthers were playing the Sheffield Steelers in the Elite Ice Hockey League’s cup competition. The Steelers were leading 2-1 in the second period. Johnson, a forward who briefly played for the Pittsburgh Penguins, skated with the puck into Sheffield’s defensive zone. As he pivoted to move inside, Steelers defenseman Matt Petgrave was skating toward him. Petgrave had another Panthers player in front of him and appeared to have made contact. Then, Petgrave’s left skate elevated as the defenseman began to fall and the blade hit Johnson in the neck.
Johnson, a Minnesota native who was 29, was pronounced dead at a local hospital. The Panthers had described it as a “freak accident.” On Nov. 14, South Yorkshire Police arrested a man but have not released his name or age. The man was released on bail the next day and has been “ re-bailed ” several times — a formality while the investigation continues. In the British system, an arrest signals the start of an investigation — a decision on charges would come afterward.
Police try to determine the “state of mind” of defendants. Besides conducting interviews, that likely means examining phones or computers — and that’s time consuming, even when defendants give passwords, which they’re not obligated to do.
“There are massive delays in the British criminal justice system. Cases are taking a long time to be brought to charge,” criminal defense lawyer Quentin Hunt told The Associated Press.
A report published less than two years ago said there was a backlog of 25,000 devices waiting to be examined.
“My cases are regularly being delayed by up to a year because of delays in getting back digital analyses of devices,” Hunt said. “It is notorious within the British justice system, why cases are taking longer to be brought to a charging decision.”
Lawyers point to a 2004 court ruling that overturned the “grievous bodily harm” conviction of an amateur soccer player who seriously injured an opponent with an on-the-ball tackle. It said criminal prosecution should be reserved for conduct that is “sufficiently grave.”
In deciding if conduct reaches the criminal threshold “it has to be borne in mind that, in highly competitive sports, conduct outside the rules can be expected to occur in the heat of the moment,” the ruling added. “The type of sport, the level at which it is played, the nature of the act, the degree of force used, the extent of the risk of injury, the state of mind of the defendant are all likely to be relevant in determining whether the defendant’s actions go beyond the threshold.”
Prosecutions have been more common in “off-the-ball” scenarios such us punching, biting or head-butting.
An “on-the-ball” case that involved a rugby player being left partially paralyzed was handled in civil court. Natasha King wasn’t criminally charged despite dropping her body weight onto Dani Czernuszka-Watts, who was in a vulnerable position as she was about to pick up the ball in a 2017 match.
Czernuszka-Watts won her civil suit in which a former referee testified after watching video of the game that in his 60 years in rugby he had “never witnessed such a reckless incident.” The civil court judge had found that King had acted out of revenge built up from earlier in the match.
“Against those hallmarks, the fact that the incident would likely be considered ‘on the ball’ may have saved the injuring player from concurrent criminal prosecution,” attorney Henry Goldschmidt wrote in his analysis of criminal liability in sports.
Petgrave’s collision with Johnson was clearly “on the ball” because Johnson had the puck on his stick.
An incident in a hockey game in December 1995 led to a grievous bodily harm charge against Nicky Chinn, who played for the Steelers and was accused of purposely using his stick to injure an opponent’s eye. A jury found him not guilty.
The case is likely an involuntary manslaughter investigation in which “there has to be an unlawful act or negligence,” Hunt said, but prosecutors wouldn’t need to prove the intent to kill or cause serious bodily harm.
Gross negligence manslaughter is still involuntary but more complicated: “You owe a duty of care to someone else, and you are negligent in conduct and that gives rise to death due to your negligence,” Hunt added.
Voluntary manslaughter is more akin to a murder charge with clear intent to kill. The fact that Johnson wasn’t wearing a neck guard could prove legally significant.
“Given that it’s not up to him (the man under arrest) as to whether the other player wore a neck guard or not, then it will be, I imagine, quite difficult for the prosecution to prove to the requisite standard that he should be held criminally accountable,” Hunt said.
A week before an arrest was made, South Yorkshire coroner Tanyka Rawden issued a “ Prevention of Future Deaths ” report urging that neck guards be mandatory for all hockey players.
“In due course the inquest will consider whether the use of a neck guard or protector could have prevented Mr Johnson’s death. At this stage in my investigation however, I am sufficiently concerned that deaths may occur in the future if neck guards or protectors are not worn,” Rawden wrote.
The coroner’s inquest was suspended in January, a procedural move because the police investigation was ongoing.
There has been debate about player protections. Britain’s top league made neck guards mandatory last Jan. 1, two months after Johnson’s death.
The next key date is Nov. 11, when the man who was arrested would need to be re-bailed again. Petgrave, a 32-year-old Canadian, has not made any public statements and his agent declined to comment. Police have also declined to comment.
Teams around the league began recognizing the one-year mark by holding 47 seconds of applause before games this weekend.
The Panthers plan to hold a jersey retirement ceremony for Johnson’s No. 47 on Dec. 14.
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