In what he said was a first in his eight years on the bench, a Hennepin County judge rejected a plea deal — in this case a carjacker and repeat robber who had what the judge called "too many victims" to justify a sentence of probation and a year in the workhouse.
District Judge Paul Scoggin said in court Wednesday that he could not agree to the Hennepin County Attorney's proposed sentence for Dorian Flowers, 20, in exchange for guilty pleas in some of the nearly 20 charges against him. Scoggin considered the number of victims and seriousness of the offenses, but he also said the court is concerned with the number of downward departures, especially when a presentence investigation recommended that Flowers should serve prison time.
It's extremely uncommon for judges to reject pleas, and it's another setback for County Attorney Mary Moriarty, who since taking office at the beginning of the year has faced repeated criticism for efforts to enact sentencing reforms she ran on.
Scoggin was a prosecutor for the office before appointed to the bench in 2015 by then-Gov. Mark Dayton.
"For the first time in my career," Scoggin said, "I am rejecting the negotiation and ordering these matters on for trial."
His reasoning included "too many victims," "repeated alleged activity," and that probation would "deprecate the seriousness of the offenses here."
Flowers was the alleged accomplice of James Jones-Drain, 20, who was accused of fleeing then-Minneapolis police officer Brian Cummings in a stolen vehicle in July 2021. Cummings crashed into and killed an innocent driver, Leneal Frazier, in the high-speed pursuit through north Minneapolis.
"The agreement here called for a full year in jail and five years of supervised probation with the potential for five years in prison if Mr. Flowers failed on probation," said Moriarty's spokesman, Nick Kimball. Moriarty declined an interview request.
