Mary Moriarty: Why I prioritized establishing a conviction integrity unit in Hennepin County

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On Nov. 6, Edgar Barrientos-Quintana was exonerated and released from prison following a judge’s order finding that he was wrongfully convicted of murder nearly 16 years ago. That decision followed a thorough investigation and report by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU).

Barrientos-Quintana’s case presents numerous issues that often show up in cases of wrongful conviction. Those include flawed eyewitness identification procedures, coercive interviews of youth witnesses, failure to disclose exculpatory evidence and failure to recognize obvious evidence of innocence once the investigation locked into a narrative of guilt. Recognizing the strength of the evidence in the CRU’s report, family members of the victim, Jesse Mickelson, joined my office in supporting Barrientos-Quintana’s exoneration.

Injustices like this case are why I prioritized establishing a conviction integrity unit in Hennepin County when I came into office. I know from my career working in the criminal legal system that, like all human systems, we sometimes get it wrong.

That recognition is why conviction integrity units have increasingly become part of the standard tool kit for high-quality, conscientious prosecution around the country. Indeed, prosecutor’s offices in large counties lacking such a unit have now become the exception, not the norm.

The Attorney General’s CRU has done, and continues to do, high-quality and essential work around the state in cases like that of Barrientos-Quintana. Given Hennepin County’s large size and the fact that it accounts for about a quarter of the state’s criminal convictions, however, it makes sense for the county to join the majority of large U.S. counties in establishing its own unit. Conducting this work within our office also makes sense because, in addition to having primary jurisdiction over cases in Hennepin County, our office has direct access to the files and evidence to facilitate case review, as well as relationships with the witness and victims involved.

For that reason, in July, my office announced the creation of our Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU). That unit is fully staffed and open for business — I’m proud to say we are taking applications to review cases.

The work of our CIU will be both backward and forward looking. The CIU’s basic purpose is to identify and remedy wrongful convictions. If someone is sitting in prison for a crime they did not commit, that is an intolerable injustice, and we must correct it. Prosecutors have the tools and the power ideally suited to remedy those errors.

At the end of the day, wrongful convictions make everyone worse off. The most obvious harm is to the innocent person and their family who have endured painful and unwarranted separation for years and even decades. Wrongful convictions harm victims’ families, who must contend with the painful realization that an innocent person was convicted and imprisoned. And these families, along with their community and the broader interest of public safety, are also harmed because the flip side of many wrongful convictions is that the guilty person is left free to potentially hurt others.

But this work is not only about fixing past mistakes. It is also about improving our processes going forward and avoiding future mistakes. We want to learn from these cases in ways that can inform how we prosecute cases and how we train our attorneys. Indeed, our office is already conducting additional training on eyewitness identification with the assistance of a leading expert in the field to address issues that arose in both the Barrientos-Quintana case as well as the case of Marvin Haynes, who was exonerated with our office’s support last December.

If we can succeed in correcting past injustices and avoiding future ones, our hope is that the work of the CIU and other initiatives will strengthen public confidence in prosecutions in Hennepin County. Our office is committed to conducting this essential public function with integrity, from initial charging decisions and trials through appeals and beyond. The CIU provides one more tool to put toward that purpose, even if that means reversing a case years later. Because, as cases like that of Edgar Barrientos-Quintana demonstrate, we must never lose sight of our obligation as prosecutors to pursue justice.

Mary F. Moriarty is the Hennepin County Attorney.