Minnesota is back in the news. The U.S. Dept, of Justice Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon posted on Twitter (X) last night,
This week we @TheJusticeDept @CivilRights opened a racial discrimination pattern and practice investigation into Hennepin County, Minnesota’s recently announced policy of taking race into consideration in plea offers. More to come.
Attached to the post is a letter addressed to Mary Moriarty, county attorney and author of the new, clearly illegal policy. The letter, dated Friday, indicates that it was sent Via Mail. So, apparently, Moriarty and her office first learned of the investigation the same way the rest of us did, through last night’s X post by Dhillon.
As John pointed out yesterday on local radio, Moriarty tries to get around the clear unconstitutionality of her policy in the same manner elite universities (Harvard and UNC) would discriminate on race: by considering the “whole” person, where race is just one factor of many. It didn’t work for the Universities, and it won’t work for Moriarty.
Moriarty says that she is trying to reduce racial disparities in criminal justice outcomes. My colleague at American Experiment, David Zimmer, has done rigorous analysis of official Minnesota crime statistics and found that such disparities do not, in fact, exist.
The county’s new policy was only made public due to some intrepid reporting by the local NBC affiliate.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports this morning,
A spokesperson for the County Attorney’s Office said it was aware of and reviewing the social media post.
Elections have consequences.
