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New Hennepin Co. unit seeks justice for the wrongfully convicted
The new unit aims to identify and rectify mistakes made in past prosecutions.
HENNEPIN COUNTY, Minn. — Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty is announcing the launch of a Conviction Integrity Unit she says could identify and rectify mistakes made in past prosecutions.
The unit aims to “investigate past convictions where there is a credible basis to suspect that a wrongful conviction or some other serious injustice may have occurred,” Moriarty said Monday in a press conference at the Hennepin County Government Center.
“Prosecutors make mistakes, law enforcement makes mistakes and so do public defenders,” she said. “We have to have the humility to recognize that the things that we might have done many, many years ago – while they looked like the right thing to do at the time – are not now, and that we need to correct those.”
This comes after Moriarty’s Office in December held a press conference to announce the exoneration and release of Marvin Haynes, who spent nearly 2 decades in prison for a murder conviction even though there wasn’t any forensic or video evidence connecting him to the crime. The HCAO ultimately agreed Haynes proved his Constitutional rights were violated during a 2005 trial.
Today, the wrongfully convicted man has his own place and a job to pay the bills. He’s also spending time with his mother, who he says isn’t doing well these days. Sunday, he stepped out for some fun at a local lake.
“I’ve just been doing new things every day,” Haynes told the press Monday. “I’ve just been enjoying my life and just making up for the 20 years that I was incarcerated.”
Moriarty didn’t say how many more cases will be investigated through the new unit, but says an application system is being developed for those who are incarcerated.
“We will be looking at cases where a person did not receive a fair trial,” she said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re innocent.”
Attorney Andrew Markquart represented Haynes while working for the Great North Innocence Project, a nonprofit. He will now lead the county unit, which is part of the Division of Professional Standards that Moriarty launched in May last year.
“You may have forensic methods or scientific techniques that were believed to be reliable at one point in time and science marches forward and all of a sudden they’re not quite as reliable,” Markquart said.
“And this is an important distinction here: our Court of Appeals and our Minnesota Supreme Court, when they review a case, are only reviewing the paper or the transcript from the trial,” she said. “So sometimes our appellate courts will confirm a conviction and they just don’t have the access to all the information that’s in the file, which we will have.”
Moriarty says the Hennepin County Board approved funding for the Conviction Integrity Unit, but that it won’t be fully staffed right away and additional resources may be needed. She also says the new unit will help free-up the Minnesota attorney general’s statewide Conviction Review Unit to focus on areas outside Hennepin County.
“If something like this existed years ago maybe I would have gotten justice sooner,” Haynes said.
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The crash happened when a Suburban pulling a trailer failed to stop at a stop sign, Minnesota State Patrol said.
WAUKENABO, Minn. — Two people from Minnetonka died in a crash Friday in Aitkin County while others, including children, were hurt.
According to Minnesota State Patrol, it happened at the intersection of Highway 169 and Grove Street/County Road 3 in Waukenabo Township at approximately 5:15 p.m.
A Suburban pulling a trailer was driving east on County Road 3 but did not stop at the stop sign at Highway 169, authorities said. The vehicle was struck by a northbound GMC Yukon. Two other vehicles were struck in the crash, but the people in those two cars were not injured.
In the Suburban, the driver sustained life-threatening injuries, according to State Patrol. Elizabeth Jane Baldwin, 61, of Minnetonka, and Marlo Dean Baldwin, 92, of Minnetonka, both died. Officials said the driver of the vehicle, a 61-year-old from Minnetonka, has life-threatening injuries.
There were six people in the Yukon when the crash occurred. The 44-year-old driver, as well as passengers ages 18, 14, and 11, sustained what officials described as life-threatening injuries. The other two passengers have non-life-threatening injuries.
Alcohol is not believed to be a factor in the crash, but officials said Elizabeth Jane Baldwin had not been wearing a seatbelt.
Among those at the start line this year will be Alex Vigil.
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Pixar’s second installment of the movie features characters we’ve already met — Joy, Sadness and Anger — and gives them a new roommate named Anxiety.
MINNEAPOLIS — Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” universe plays out inside the mind of the movie’s adolescent protagonist, Riley.
She plays a kid from Minnesota whose family uproots her life by moving to San Francisco. But did you know that what plays out in Riley’s mind actually comes from the mind of a real-life Minnesotan?
“You are one of us!” said Breaking the News anchor Jana Shortal.
“Yes, I am!” said Burnsville native and the movie’s creator and director, Kelsey Mann.
Mann was chosen for the role by ANOTHER Minnesotan — Pete Docter, the man behind the original movie, “Inside Out.”
“I don’t know if Pete asked me to do this movie because I was from Minnesota and he was from Minnesota … I just think it worked out that way,” Mann said.
How two guys from the south metro made a pair of Pixar movies that would change the game is a hell of a story that began with Docter in 2015.
“He [Docter] was just trying to tell a fun story — an emotional, fun story — and didn’t realize how much it would help give kids a vocabulary to talk about things they were feeling because they are feeling those emotions, but they’re really hard to talk about,” Mann said.
Some parents, counselors and teachers might even tell you it did more good for kids than just entertain them. It unlocked their emotions and begged for what Mann set out to create at the beginning of 2020.
“That part was fun, particularly fun,” he said. “I think the daunting part was following up a film that everyone really loved.”
But Mann knew what he wanted to do with the movie’s follow-up, “Inside Out 2.”
“Diving into Riley’s adolescence … that was just fun,” he said.
This time around, Riley is 13, hitting puberty and facing all of what, and who, comes with it. The franchise’s second installment features characters we’ve already met — Joy, Sadness and Anger — and gives them a new roommate named Anxiety.
“I think that’s what’s fun about the ‘Inside Out’ world: You can take something we all know and give it a face,” Mann said. “We can give anxiety a name and a face.”
The film follows Riley’s emotions fighting it out for control of her life. Joy wants Riley to stay young and hold on only to joy, while anxiety is hell-bent on taking over Riley over at the age of 13 because as a lot of us know, that’s when anxiety often moves in.
“I always pitched it as a takeover movie, like an emotional takeover,” Mann said. “Anxiety can kind of feel like that; it can take over and kind of shove your other emotions to the side and repress them.”
For a kids’ movie, it’s hard to watch this animation play out, even when an adult has the keys to decide.
“I’m making a movie about anxiety and I still have to remind myself to have my anxiety take a seat,” Mann said.
All of our individual anxieties have a place in this world.
“The whole movie honestly is about acceptance. Both acceptance of anxiety being there and also of your own flaws,” said Mann.
Even for our kids, we have to remember that this is life.
Anxiety will come for them; it does for us all.
The “Inside Out” world just shows them it’s so.
