Opinion | What should voters look for in a new Hennepin County attorney?

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Hennepin County voters just received an opportunity to engage in a more thoughtful process when choosing their next top prosecutor. Mary Moriarty’s announcement Wednesday that she will not be seeking re-election allows her to focus on her priorities as she outlined in her campaign — priorities many voters either willfully ignored or were ignorant about as they chose the name that carried the DFL endorsement.

It should also be noted that Moriarty, the previous chief Hennepin County public defender, won her election over former Hennepin County District Judge Martha Holton Dimick 58% to 42%. Holton Dimick had also served as a senior assistant Hennepin County Attorney and deputy Minneapolis city attorney. Contrast those credentials with allegations against Moriarty when she was the chief public defender, which resulted in a $300,000 settlement and the State Board of Public Defense declining to reappoint her.

In fairness, I don’t want to disregard those voters who truly believe in the progressive prosecution model. After all, it’s been trending nationwide, with cities like Orlando, Fla., and Austin, Texas, recently electing district attorneys who ran on a progressive platform.

However, the pendulum may have swung a bit too far. In California, several district attorneys who had implemented policies quite like those unveiled by Moriarty were recalled.

In the words of former Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, “You can’t just burn the system down … [a]ny mainstream career prosecutor is going to tell you, yes — we support reforms. But at the end of it all, it cannot be extreme. It must be driven by the facts in the law. Every case is unique.”

If comments in this newspaper are any indication, voters’ remorse has been trending for some time. Perhaps that’s the real reason Moriarty sought additional funds for retaining the Wren Collective, a public defender-oriented PR firm, to assist in her communications shop. In all, the total that will be spent on that effort is approximately the equivalent of the top line-attorney salary in the office. This seems especially concerning when a countywide email went out asking employees to take special leave without pay to help bring the county budget back in line.

My biggest critique of Moriarty’s tenure is that she’s been trying to do all the jobs in the criminal justice system, instead of focusing on crime victims’ rights and careful spending of taxpayer dollars. The Hennepin County Board approved her request for the services of the Wren Collective after she spent over $575,000 of taxpayer dollars on a failed prosecution of state trooper Ryan Londregan. At the time Moriarty went to the board with that request, she informed them that the Adult Prosecution Division was down 10 lawyers. Ten. The money spent on the Londregan case plus this latest expense could go a long way in filling those positions.

At this juncture, I wonder whether a DFL endorsement is a help or a hinderance in the current political climate. In my mind, a better analysis for Hennepin County voters is a checklist of sorts.

Think of the future candidates as job applicants. All voters sit on the hiring committee, and each has an opportunity to help decide what kind of applicant would best fill this very important job.

I’d humbly suggest some preliminary criteria:

Second, the Hennepin County Attorney should have some basic ideas about — and respect for — how the office works.

Third, the Hennepin County Attorney should prioritize citizens’ safety and enforcement of the laws, which necessarily requires a positive and trusting relationship with law enforcement.

Finally, and this is a big one: If current lawyers in the office offer statements and endorsements for a particular candidate, listen to them. These are the people who do the day-to-day work on behalf of crime victims and taxpayers and, as such, are most suited to providing voters with information that is free from political bias.