Opinion | Let’s examine Mary Moriarty’s decision with a longer lens

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The decision by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty not to run for re-election has prompted an important conversation about our justice system. The discussion has pitted praise for Moriarty’s research-based charging decisions and initiatives against longstanding complaints that she is soft on crime.

Debates about criminal justice often resemble the blind men examining an elephant. One grabs the trunk and says the elephant is like a snake; another feels a leg and says the elephant is like a tree. And so on.

Look at the facts of a crime, especially a violent one — the terror and injury, the outrageous breach of social norms — and you want to lock the perpetrator away in a concrete cage.

But look at perpetrators closely — often seeing abuse, deprivation and pathology, as well as good things they have done — and you can see hope for restoration of a life.

What does our society usually look at? A violent episode, an exciting manhunt, or a public trial recounting every detail of the crime. The offender’s life story is usually an afterthought.

Snake or tree?

Forty years in the criminal justice system as a prosecutor, defense attorney and judge have shown me its shortcomings. Too often offenders leave the system and keep committing crimes. Victims sometimes get short-term satisfaction from a stiff sentence but rarely the long-lasting help they need.

So I have gravitated toward restorative justice — a process where an offender and a victim can confront each other in a safe setting. Remorse and repair often take place. Restorative justice surpasses the traditional system in both victim satisfaction and offender reform.

For example, a recent evaluation of all Minneapolis misdemeanor juvenile cases from 2014 to 2018 done by University of Minnesota Medical School researchers found striking results: Young people who participated in restorative justice were re-arrested in the following year less than half as often as those who did not participate.

For years I wondered why, despite the advantages of restorative justice and other evidence-based approaches that favor treatment and rehabilitation, they generate such heartfelt opposition from sincere citizens. The words most often used are that they fail to hold criminals “accountable,” to provide “justice.” Criminals deserve more than a “slap on the wrist.”

Desire for revenge can explain the intense hostility of victims and their families. But why is the “slap on the wrist” mantra so often repeated by those far removed from the crime? Scientists call this “third-party punishment.”

Last year, I was pointed to the term “denunciation.” Regardless of the effect of the justice system on offenders or victims, the system simply must denounce crime. Our trust that we belong to an orderly community is threatened by society-ripping conduct. We deeply need such conduct to be emphatically condemned. A harsh sentence does that.

I suspect that Moriarty has been so controversial because her charging decisions and explanations have not adequately denounced crime.

So. What do we do?

Civilization progresses not by improving human nature. Human nature rarely changes. Rather, progress is made by painstakingly building institutions that curb the worst and bring out the best elements in human nature.

At the time the American colonies broke free, English law recognized more than 200 capital crimes. Cut down a tree or steal a sheep, and you could be hanged!

And crime rates were far higher.

Many of our institutions are in turmoil. Nonetheless, our task here is to promote the continued evolution of our justice system. That means developing ever-better practices to help victims heal and to reform and restore offenders — while at the same time finding better ways than harsh sentences to emphatically denounce their crimes.

I would like to see a county attorney who can denounce the sin and not the sinner.

One way to denounce crime without relying on tough sentences is to show that restorative and rehabilitative processes are tougher than just sitting in a prison cell.

One caution: I have encountered a wide range of treatment and restorative programs, and they vary in their rigor and effectiveness. A prosector has difficult choices to make about what cases are suitable for such programs, but a wise county attorney would promise that any program used for referrals has a track record of deep rehabilitation.

Our eyes are now open to different views of the justice system. We have a chance to go beyond just feeling the elephant’s trunk or leg and to find a person who sees the full picture. That means a person with good ideas about combining restoration and denunciation.