Mary Frances Moriarty was born on January 14,1964 and is an American attorney and politician serving as the County Attorney of Hennepin County, Minnesota.
22 Facts About Mary Moriarty
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Mary Moriarty worked briefly as a reporter before enrolling at Macalester College, where she played softball and basketball and majored in history and political science, earning her Bachelor of Arts in 1986.
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Early in her career as a public defender, Mary Moriarty argued a case that would eventually go to the US Supreme Court.
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Mary Moriarty argued that it would have been impossible to identify the lump as drugs.
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In 2014, after spending 25 years as a public defender, Mary Moriarty was selected as Hennepin County's first female chief public defender.
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Mary Moriarty's office forced Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman and the Minneapolis Police Department to stop the stings, which many viewed as racially biased.
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The state board did not admit wrongdoing, but it "agreed to a complete settlement of all of the disputes" between state leadership and Mary Moriarty, avoiding a future lawsuit, according to the out-of-court settlement.
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In return, Mary Moriarty officially retired from the Hennepin County Public Defender's Office.
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Mary Moriarty announced the same day that she would explore a campaign for the open Hennepin County Attorney position.
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Mary Moriarty earned the endorsement of the Minnesota DFL at its convention in Hopkins on May 14,2022, after two rounds of voting.
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On November 8,2022, Mary Moriarty was elected Hennepin county attorney, defeating Dimick.
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Mary Moriarty is the first known LGBT person to serve as the Hennepin County Attorney.
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On November 14,2022, Mary Moriarty announced that State Representative Cedrick Frazier and law professor Mark Osler would serve as co-chairs of her transition committee.
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Mary Moriarty's decision was criticized by the family of the murder victim, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minnesota's largest police association, and community activists, who felt betrayed by what they viewed as lack of accountability for the killers and a miscarriage of justice for survivors.
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In September 2023, Mary Moriarty contradicted Ellison over a legal opinion on restraints by school resource officers.
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In September 2023, Mary Moriarty announced that she would consider prosecution of a state trooper involved in the deadly shooting of Ricky Cobb II.
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Mary Moriarty emphasized her consulting of a use-of-force expert, saying that their independent review would be "a critical part of our process".
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Mary Moriarty later charged the trooper with murder in January 2024, determining that "charges were appropriate without the use of an expert".
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Mary Moriarty had retained Jeffrey Noble as her expert, who had previously testified for Ramsey County prosecutors that the shooting of Philando Castile was unreasonable.
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Mary Moriarty stopped consulting with Noble after a meeting regarding his preliminary thoughts on the case, where Noble gave his opinion that the trooper acted reasonably in shooting Cobb.
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The State Patrol's use-of-force expert provided an affidavit stating that prosecutors in Mary Moriarty's office had cherry-picked his statements to produce a criminal complaint against the trooper, who the expert said had acted in accordance with training.
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In June 2024, Mary Moriarty dropped the case against the state trooper, Ryan Londregan.