After Marvin Haynes release, Hennepin County lays out reforms to address wrongful convictions
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People convicted of crimes in Hennepin County will soon have more recourse to get wrongful convictions or lengthy sentences overturned.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty says her office is establishing a conviction integrity unit to consider wrongful conviction claims. It’s also launching a program to revisit and potentially shorten prison sentences.
Moriarty announced the reforms after Monday’s release of Marvin Haynes from a Stillwater prison. A judge vacated his 2005 murder conviction after a lengthy legal challenge from Haynes’ sister and the Great North Innocence Project. The conviction hinged on faulty eyewitness testimony, and prosecutors offered no physical evidence tying Haynes to the murder of Minneapolis flower shop owner Harry “Randy” Sherer.
“It is not easy to admit and correct our wrongs, but it is necessary,” said Moriarty, who became Hennepin County’s lead attorney a year ago.
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New unit will review wrongful conviction claims
Moriarty said her office is in the process of establishing a conviction integrity unit to review wrongful conviction claims.
The state attorney general’s office already has one. It worked on Haynes’ case. But Moriarty said another is needed.
“They’re very short on resources, and anyone in the state of Minnesota can apply,” she said. “The reason we are forming one is because Hennepin County has the most cases in Minnesota, the most people in prison, and so it makes sense for our office to form one to focus on those types of cases.”
Program will ask judges to reconsider sentence lengths
In the coming weeks, Hennepin County will launch what's called a prosecutor-led resentencing program.
A new law allowing such programs statewide went into effect in August. Under it, prosecutors can ask a judge to reconsider sentences for cases in their counties based on good behavior and readiness to return to society.
“What seems like an appropriate sentence may be an appropriate sentence at that time, but we should take a look at that person to see whether they’ve developed, whether they’re remorseful, what they’ve done while they’re in prison, and can they be safe in the community?” Moriarty said.
She added that the work is similar to that of a parole board, which the state does not have. Its Board of Pardons, however, can commute sentences. It meets twice a year.
Another new state law seeks to increase access to that process by reducing the waiting period for some pardon requests and by establishing a commission that will consider cases more regularly and give its recommendations to the board.
Moriarty, who has faced pushback from victims families and others for charges and settlements they considered too soft, said she understands the program may be unpopular with some.
“As the county attorney, my job is to look at public safety. And if we see [someone] — especially a youth — who can be rehabilitated, does it make any sense for us to send that person to prison where they will experience much more trauma and be much more likely to commit another offense when they get out?” she said.
Proposed law would give more time to challenge convictions
Moriarty and the Great North Innocence Project are also supporting a bill next legislative session that would increase the statute of limitations for bringing new evidence to court after a person has been convicted.
Marvin Haynes had already passed that deadline and was only allowed to present his case because Moriarty’s office agreed to it.
“And the reason we did that is because that was simply a procedural bar,” Moriarty said. “It did not seem fair to keep him out of court on the substance of what actually happened in his case because of a law that that restricts people from coming back to court.”
The law would extend that time period to help people in counties where prosecutors are less likely to make an exception.
Investigative standards help prevent new wrongful convictions
On the matter of preventing wrongful convictions in the first place, Moriarty said the standards investigators follow when doing police work have improved since Haynes was convicted.
“And I’ll give you an example of a couple: Most people are probably familiar with what’s called a six pack or a lineup,” she said. “What the research says very clearly is that a person who’s shown all six of those photos is most likely to pick out the person who looks most like the perpetrator. That doesn’t mean it was, it’s just this relative concept of who looks most like it.
“So best practices are that you show one picture at a time and the witness says ‘yes’ or ‘no’ after each picture,” Moriarty continued. “The other thing is that you don’t have somebody who knows anything about the case showing those pictures to the eyewitness, because they may inadvertently signal to the person that a particular picture should be picked.
“So putting in place those best practices that are scientifically sound is one way of avoiding this from happening again.”
Moriarty said advances in DNA, fingerprint and video evidence have also improved, decreasing the likelihood of wrongful convictions.