Good.
In 2019, 39-year-old Steve Markey, sitting in his car in Minneapolis, was murdered during an unsuccessful carjacking attempt. The two teenage suspects both fired shots at Markey. They were arrested the next day after a string of other violent crimes. Both confessed to the murder.
Minneapolis’s DA before the current woke District Attorney Mary Moriarty said he would try the defendants as adults. One of the defendants, Husayn Braveheart (above), now 20 years old, fought to have his case remain in juvenile court where the punishment would be more moderate than in adult court: his co-defendant received a 22-year sentence when tried as an adult. In November 2022, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that Braveheart should be certified for trial as an adult after determining the State had met the burden of proof on a series of public safety factors including Braveheart’s culpability and his history of failing to participate in diversion programs and other therapy.
But at a pretrial hearing in August, Moriarty announced that she had entered into a plea agreement in which Braveheart would serve just 1 year in a workhouse and 5 years of probation. Under the deal, the 20-year-old would serve no prison time for murder.
Moriarty is one of many big city Democratic prosecutors who advocates a non-punative, gentler, more healing approach to crime that she has followed by dismissing charges in several disturbing cases, including a rape case right after taking over the DA office. Last March, she issued a memo explaining how her office would handle juvenile offenders: the emphasis would be on “accountability, treatment and healing; not punishment.” She also revised the DA office’s mission and vision statements, committing prosecutors to “preventive and restorative approaches to address the complex root causes of crime and violence.”
Yes, this foolishness is a car on the George Floyd Ethics Train Wreck.
Moriarty was previously a public defender. Electing a public defender to be an urban DA isn’t quite like letting a fox guard the hen house; it’s more like letting a chicken try to make friends with the foxes. This nice, idealistic and incompetent woman explained her philosophy while campaigning last year: “Incarceration, sometimes a year or more after a crime is committed, disconnects the punishment from the impact of a crime on a victim. Incarceration disconnects the person who committed violence from their community and makes reintegration extremely difficult,” she said on her campaign website. “Kids are just that: kids. Research shows that the decision making part of the brain responsible for impulse control and risk taking is not fully developed until the age of twenty-five.”
Oddly, most kids manage not to shoot people while their brains are developing.
Moriarty argued that Braveheart had “changed” in the 4 years he had been in pre-trial custody. She argued that he had been “extraordinarily responsive to the carefully selected treatment that he has been able to access since he’s been incarcerated…” The disgustingly lenient plea deal was based, she said, on “well established evidence on brain science.” Not surprisingly, Braveheart’s victim’s family was not pleased.
The judge in the case agreed with them. District Judge Michael Burns this week rejected the plea deal, a rare move but the right one. Burns ordered the case for trial unless another, more appropriate agreement is reached by a December 14 hearing.
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Sources: American Experiment, Alpha News
Ethics Alarms 
I am part of the criminal bar listserv in Minnesota. This case has gotten a lot of attention there with respect to the intervention of the Judge into a negotiated agreement between the prosecution and the defense.
On the one hand, I can concede that the prosecutor is probably not doing her job; on the other hand, should the Judge be intervening in negotiations.
While you point out that Moriarty used to be a public defender, many of my colleagues pointed out that Burns is a former prosecutor, whose past employment is listed as:
Assistant Hennepin County Attorney
Adjunct professor, Hamline University
Associate attorney, Halleland Lewis Nilan & Johnson, P.A.
Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Minnesota Attorney General
Probation officer, Hennepin County Community Corrections
It is often a complaint that many judges are former prosecutors and they bring that mentality to the bench.
My complaint (or question) is that, in all my years of practice, I do not think I have ever seen a Judge intervene and reject a plea deal on the ground that it is TOO HARD ON THE DEFENDANT. They only intervene when the State is not doing its job. And, prosecutors are very protective of their prosecutorial discretion to prevent Defendants from stepping around them and going directly to the Judge.
I don’t like when Judges intervene because it is completely one-sided, it disrupts the notion of the adversarial system, and the function of the criminal requires that cases get resolved.
A prevailing sentiment among many members of the bar, myself included, is, if a judge wants to toss out a plea deal, that judge had better expect to see more trials and fewer settlements.
That is the only way Judges will learn that it is not their job to take sides.
But, yes, this prosecutor should be voted out at the next available opportunity.
And, yes, I think the Judge in the Hunter Biden case did a good thing when it appeared that favoritism may have influenced the plea deal. (And, in Hunter’s case, you are dealing with a federal judge and it is often difficult to match the arrogance of an Article III judge.)
-Jut
As someone outside the legal profession, I appreciate getting your perspective. All too often we (well, me, anyway) make up our mind about something without having the benefit of the knowledge that comes with other perspectives. From my limited knowledge, I believe the adversarial system has served us well in obtaining justice, and yet plea deals (where adversaries agree to resolve a case) often leave me with a vague feeling that justice has not been done.
Here’s Johnny: “plea deals (where adversaries agree to resolve a case) often leave me with a vague feeling that justice has not been done.”
At the same time, we have the expression, “throw the book at him,” meaning the prosecutor “throws in the kitchen sink” (to mix metaphors) in charging someone.
Prosecutors often overcharge. And, they will be quick to point out that they are not there to win, but to seek justice, while defense attorneys are there to win.
Whenever I can, I try to disabuse prosecutors of that notion. Cynically put, most defendants are guilty; they just might not be guilty for what they have been charged. My goal is to get the correct conviction (and there are some compromises involved).
For instance, last spring, I got an acquittal on two murder charge against a guy who was innocent of the charges. But, he was fully willing to plead to four other charges that he was guilty of (attempts drug purchase, harboring a fugitive, ineligible person in possession of a firearm, reckless discharge of a firearm) and all of which carried lesser penalties than murder. My guy was all for it.
The prosecutor rejected these options. The jury acquitted him of the murder. (The guy who pulled the trigger was already into a 12-year sentence.) My proposals were just; the prosecutor rejected them; my guys went free (after sitting in jail for 18 months).
Justice would have been done if the prosecutor took the deal. He could have been in for 60 months if they truly were seeking the truth.
A plea deal on my terms would have made for a just result.
-Jut
Thanks again. I knew it wasn’t always simple, and there’s a lot those who are not directly involved never see.
Me too… It seems that criminals gain power in the system because they have many more chips to play… “We’ll drop the straw purchase, the felon in possession, and the carrying of a concealed weapon without a permit if you tell us who the getaway driver is and plead guilty of aggravated robbery.”
While the law abiding citizen who is caught with a forgotten firearm at a security checkpoint gets railroaded on the one charge and zero mens rea.
Never forget that the same side pushing for this is also pushing for stricter gun control laws.
The word I have heard to describe the government of our cities is anarchotyranny. The government refuses to protect the public from crime, but punishes the law-abiding with ever increasing regulations and restrictions of rights. We have both anarchy, where the citizens get no protection from the government and tyranny, where the government controls the population and strangles rights.
At this point, I have to regard the criminals as government actors. This has been a long-running theme on the left. You can see it portrayed in the first Death Wish movie (the only good one). Paul Kersey’s wife and daughter are robbed, his wife killed and his daughter traumaized. The police do little to nothing to find the criminals who do this. Paul Kersey basically baits criminals into victimizing him and kills them in ways that would be considered self-defense in my state.* The entire New York City police department is mobilized to stop him, culminating in the mayor ordering the Police Chief to assassinate Kersey. Why the difference in the treatment of Mrs. Kersey’s murder and the killing of armed muggers? The muggers work to serve the interest of the state. The more crime there is, the more people are forced to be victimized, the easier it is for the state to get people to give up their rights for ‘protection’.
I noticed that the prosecutor on the rape case lied to the judge about some conduct in the courtroom and is being investigated. Then her boss drops the case. Can any of the prosecutors be trusted?
“Never forget that the same side pushing for this is also pushing for stricter gun control laws.”
There is some consistent logic there. If young people through the age of 25 (what is the age of adulthood these days, anyway?) cannot control their impulses, then they should not have easy access to guns. Restriction to the larger population would of course mean greater restriction to impulsive youths as well.
OTOH, my own view is that failing to hold impulsive youths accountable for their actions promotes more impulsive and irresponsible acts.
Apparently, there are now tens of thousands of illegal machine guns in the hands of criminals. The government isn’t doing much to stop it. Even junior high school kids in Chicago have them now. We will never know the truth reporting like this, however.
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/indianapolis/2023/02/24/what-is-a-glock-switch-a-guide-to-the-illegal-devices-emerging-in-indy/69924537007/
Note the image of the Glock ‘switch’. Note that it has the Glock logo and says ‘Made in Austria’. Note that right below the picture, the article states that the Glock does not make Glock ‘switches’, despite the name. Are the journalists (a) lying, (b) too unobservant to notice the police lied to them, (c) incapable of seeing the image and the statement from the police and understanding the police lied, or (d) all of the above.
They say ‘Glock’ and ‘Made in Austria’ the same way you can order ‘Gucci’ bags labeled ‘Made in Italy’ from Aliexpress that are actually sewn in a Chinese sweat shop.
Glock’s factory-made machine pistol (model 18) is intentionally different and incompatible with the non-fully auto pistol designs.
Non-fully auto Glocks simply have a part panel that allows a sear-trip device to be installed in the place where the panel normally holds the firing pin and extractor spring. This sear trip device was actually patented in 1996 by someone completely unconnected to Glock inc.
Then who makes them? Such a device can only be owned by law enforcement, the military, and certain FFL’s. It is past the 1986 deadline for NFA registration.
The military doesn’t need them, and they would be disastrous in the hands of most police forces. The only use I can think of for them is for the bodyguards of high government officials, where you can justify shooting 5 or 6 innocent civilians accidentally.
If these really are just knock-offs, why doesn’t the ATF declare Glock pistols as machine guns under the NFA? Any firearm readily convertible to full-auto fire is also legally a machine gun. For example, open bolt firearms that hold more than 1 round are automatically considered machine guns under the NFA.
You’re assuming that the purpose and effects of the NFA are to reduce crime. You’re also assuming criminals abide by the NFA. The Supreme Court ruled in Haynes v. U.S. that felons don’t have to.
Go do your own research on who makes them, how they get here and how many striker-fired pistols use similar construction and are thus exploitable. Tell me what percentage of the pistols in circulation this represents and thus are “in common use” and protected under SCOTUS precedent.
The media’s not doing their job and you’re not paying me to do it either. Do it yourself.
You may have misinterpreted some of the tone of Michael R.’s post that was intended to be heard as sarcasm. I believe you and he (and I) are on the same side of this issue.
The media almost never does their job, especially on firearms-related stories. Most have this current Maine lunatic running around with the fabled “Military Grade High-Powered Assault Rifle”.
Yeah, playing the ignorance card twice in a row is a trolling tactic in my book. I only give folks one free LMGTFY.