Call it a lesson in progressive “good intentions.”
Things always start out that way, don’t they? Take Minnesota’s overhaul of its felony murder statute. According to Minnesota Public Radio, under the old statute, “prosecutors could charge a person with aiding and abetting murder during the commission of an underlying felony no matter their role in that felony.”
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, a former public defender, was one of those who supported the overhaul. As MPR reported, “Moriarty noted that under the old felony murder law, a killer who signs a plea deal could wind up with a shorter sentence than his accomplice who drove the getaway car and is convicted at trial.”
“It is not fair when two people get charged with murder when one of them pulled the trigger and the other one had no idea this was going to happen,” Moriarty told the outlet in a story published earlier this week.
“Certainly both people have to be held accountable, but they should be held accountable for what they actually do.”
Now, MPR reported, Minnesota’s “revised statute limits felony murder prosecutions to people who caused the victim’s death, intended to cause it, or were major participants in the underlying crime.”
And who were the first beneficiaries of this progressive overhaul? Two women who were inarguably major participants in the underlying crime.
Good work, Minnesota.
Megan Christine Cater, 25, and Briana Marie Martinson, 27, are now free from prison after participating in a 2017 robbery-and-murder in which they ransacked an apartment in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington searching for drugs while their two male accomplices pistol-whipped and shot the 19-year-old dealer whose apartment they were ransacking. Both were originally sentenced to 13.5 years behind bars for second-degree unintentional murder, according to KMSP-TV.
Should those who aid in murders face longer sentences?
Those sentences were thrown out and the two were resentenced to 69 months and 57 months, respectively, by a judge who decided to reduce the severity of what they were convicted of to lesser aiding and abetting first-degree burglary charges. Since both had been in jail for six years already, presto, they were out.
Bloomington Police are furious at the decision to release the two women, calling out their “crocodile tears” in court during a media briefing.
First, the basics of the case, as per MPR: “On April 27, 2017, Corey Elder, 19, was at home in Bloomington when Cater and Martinson showed up at his apartment. Recognizing them as acquaintances and past drug customers, Elder opened the door.
“But waiting in the hallway were Tarrance Fontaine Murphy and Maurice Antonio Verser, who rushed in behind them. As the men beat and pistol whipped Elder, Cater and Martinson ransacked the apartment in search of drugs.
“Moments later, Verser took the Colt .45 caliber revolver, pressed it to Elder’s neck, and fired once as Elder’s girlfriend, Noe Townsend, lay beside him.” The teenager was killed.
Despite the fact they had set into motion the sequence of events that allowed the robbery and murder to happen — as Bloomington Police noted in a clip posted to social media from the news briefing, “None of these people are here in this apartment if it wasn’t for them” — a judge found that orchestrating the robbery didn’t make them responsible for the felony murder that came out of the robbery.
This wasn’t a guy in a getaway car who didn’t know he was driving a murderer who got 20-to-life while the killer got a reduced plea deal. These were active and critical participants in the crime that killed Corey Elder. And, say what you will about drug dealing — it’s an illegal, dangerous and mephitic profession, sure, but arguably less morally odious than armed robbery and certainly better than actively killing someone with a gun during that armed robbery — you don’t just get a free pass with helping “orchestrate” a gunpoint apartment ransack that led to a murder because someone sells narcotics.
You would think that Moriarity — what with her talk about all the unjustly vilified getaway drivers of her state rotting behind bars for a 15-year-old convenience store stickup gone awry, while the actual murders traipse around Duluth, free as a bull elk in the forests of Minnesota — would be appalled that these were the first two people to get their sentences reduced under the overhaul. Surprise! She’s thrilled, because of course she is.
“This result is an important step toward improving justice and fairness in our legal system. Ms. Cater and Ms. Martinson have been held accountable for the harm that they actually intended. They have served their time, but they should not serve more time for a crime they never committed,” she said, according to KMSP.
She couldn’t have been any more complementary than the attorneys for Cater and Martinson, which is a telling thing for a county attorney to say.
“We are grateful Megan Cater has been given this second chance by Minnesota legislators to re-enter society,” said Cater’s attorney, JaneAnne Murray. “There are too many people serving lengthy sentences in Minnesota’s prisons that do not reflect their minor and less culpable roles in their offenses.”
“Ms. Martinson is grateful the Minnesota Legislature recognized that the previous felony murder law in Minnesota created too great a disconnect between liability and culpability,” Martinson’s attorney, Bradford Colbert, said. “While she did not play a role in the tragic death that occurred, she understands the gravity of the loss and the trauma that night caused for so many. She feels awful for what happened, and deeply regrets her role in the events of that evening.”
But not awful enough to, like, serve a full sentence for helping orchestrate a crime that ended with someone being murdered.
The Bloomington Police Department was less impressed, and — as previously mentioned — held a media briefing to remind the world exactly who woke justice was letting out from behind bars:
As Bloomington Police Chief Booker T. Hodges noted, the two women “orchestrated a group of people to murder Mr. Corey Elder in his apartment while he was there with his girlfriend.”
The two, Hodges said, “organized these groups of individuals” to commit the robbery-turned-murder — and noted that the people who remained in the car, those poor ol’ “getaway drivers” Moriarity and Co. wanted to help out, “each got over 12 years for this.”
Hodges put up the mug shots of the six people who were convicted in Elder’s murder on a slide: “None of these people on this collage are here if it isn’t for convicts Martinson and Cater,” he said.
He then addressed Moriarity’s statement about the two convicts being “held accountable.”
“I’m going to put up the picture again of Mr. Elder,” Hodges said. “Ask him about the harm they intended to cause. He’s not here. He’s in Courtside Cemetery right now. He’s got a family that loves him very much.
“I know they’re frustrated. We’re frustrated.”
He then produced a cartoon picture of a crying crocodile for effect, emphasizing the emptiness of the defendants’ “remorse” for what happened.
“Crocodile tears. It’s amazing what some people get with crocodile tears,” Hodges said.
What those crocodile tears won’t get is any peace for those who Cater and Martinson left behind.
“Although this change in law has its time and place for being warranted, this case is not one of them,” Bobbie Elder, the victim’s mother, said in a written statement.
“Megan Cater and Brianna Martinson were the masterminds behind the events that led up to my son, Corey Elder’s, murder. They think that it was the actions of Maurice Verser that landed them in prison, but it was THEIR actions that did so. They were the ones that had and arranged the entire plan, including ensuring there was a gun present. They have convinced themselves and their families as a false narrative that paints them as victims, which is the opposite of the facts.”
And as for the victim’s girlfriend, Noe Townsend, who was next to him when he was shot and killed: “I deal with a lot of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder because of what happened to me, so it definitely affected my everyday life,” she told MPR.
This is how progressive criminal justice reform works. Who isn’t in favor of reducing sentences for getaway drivers who may not have been fully aware of their accomplice’s intentions? (Well, me and plenty of other conservatives, but let’s assume you don’t follow criminal justice reform too closely and your heartstrings are easily pulled.)
Then, the felony murder statute in Minnesota is overhauled. The first beneficiaries? Women who, police say, “orchestrated” a robbery that ended in murder. Not a getaway driver, not a passive accomplice. “Orchestrators.” And the county attorney, a former public defender, is cool with that — even if she provided the getaway driver example in the MPR piece.
It’s scary what some people can accomplish with “crocodile tears,” yes. It should be even more frightening what the left can accomplish with Trojan horses.
