By Steve Neavling
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office over its policy directing prosecutors to consider race and other factors when negotiating plea deals.
The inquiry, announced Saturday on social media by Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon, will examine whether the office “engages in the illegal consideration of race in its prosecutorial decision-making,” according to a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi to County Attorney Mary Moriarty, ABC News reports.
The policy at the center of the investigation was leaked last month and instructs prosecutors to weigh a defendant’s “whole person, including their racial identity and age,” as part of a broader effort to reduce racial disparities in the justice system.
Moriarty’s office received the Justice Department letter on Monday and said it would cooperate fully.
“We’re fully confident our policy complies with the law,” spokesperson Daniel Borgertpoepping said.
Moriarty, a former public defender elected in 2022, ran on a platform of reform following the police killing of George Floyd. She vowed to make law enforcement more accountable and address systemic inequities in the criminal legal system.
The DOJ’s probe is a “pattern or practice” investigation — the same type used to examine the Minneapolis Police Department after Floyd’s death. That earlier investigation led to a proposed consent decree, now under review by the Trump administration, which has signaled opposition to federal oversight of local law enforcement.
