Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Wednesday publicly opposed a local prosecutor’s decision to push through a plea deal for two teenagers accused of murdering a 23-year-old woman during a home invasion in the same neighborhood catapulted into the international spotlight after the killing of George Floyd nearly three years ago.
At a community meeting at Shiloh Temple in North Minneapolis, Ellison criticized Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s handling of the case, putting him at odds with a longtime friend and ally. Though prosecutors initially sought for two brothers, ages 15 and 17, to be tried as adults for the murder of 23-year-old Zaria McKeever during a Brooklyn Park home invasion last November, Moriarty later changed course, deciding to prosecute them as juveniles and offered the teens plea deals sparing them potentially lengthy adult sentences.
The 15-year-old accepted the deal last month, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported, guaranteeing him a maximum two-year juvenile sentence in exchange for testifying against McKeever’s ex-boyfriend Erick Haynes, who is accused of orchestrating the attack, providing the teens with the gun and driving them to McKeever’s apartment the night she was killed.
“I agree with the family and the community that the disposition the county attorney has proposed for this juvenile that was the shooter in this heinous crime is inappropriate,” Ellison said at the meeting, according to KARE. “This proposed disposition is far outside community expectations, it does not factor in victim impact and community impact, and I think it does not actually adequately address the issue of rehabilitation for the juvenile because if the juvenile is being given 24 months because of an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, that prefrontal cortex will not be fully developed in two years. So it doesn’t make sense, and it’s also important to consider the family.”
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Ellison, however, fell short of saying he wanted Democrat Gov. Tim Walz in what would be a rare move to grant him control of the case.
In the case against former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin in the killing of Floyd and the case against former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter in the killing of Daunte Wright during Chauvin’s nearby trial, county attorneys requested that Ellison take over, KARE reported.
While McKeever’s family has protested the plea bargain for the young mother’s two teen alleged killers, Moriarty was elected in November 2022 on a criminal justice reform campaign promising to hold police accountable and to rehabilitate youth offenders rather than sending them into the adult prison system. A former public defender, Moriarty replaced former Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, who decided not to seek re-election after serving 24 non-consecutive years in the role he was first elected to in 1990.
“We are following the science. And as I said in the campaign, we need to treat kids like kids,” Moriarty previously told KARE regarding juvenile prosecution reform. “Kids aren’t simply small adults. Their brains aren’t as developed. They’re subject to peer pressure, risky behavior, manipulation by adults is what happened here. And they can be rehabilitated.”
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“We’re not saying the teenagers can’t be reformed,” McKeever’s sister, Tiffynnie Epps, told KARE, stressing the family believes two years is not enough to atone for her sister’s murder.
“Make no mistake about it, it was an execution. Stood over her body and put five bullets in her,” McKeever’s stepfather, Paul Greer, said of the teens.
“You were our last hope,” Greer added of Ellison. “You gave us hope when we met with you.”
“I cannot possibly be taking this more seriously,” Ellison insisted of McKeever’s case. “It is the thing I devoted more time on than anything in the last three weeks, and I have a trial going on in downtown right now,” the state attorney general added, referring to the high-profile lawsuit his office is handling against vape company Juul.
In response to Ellison’s remarks Wednesday, a spokesperson for Moriarty’s office told KARE, “Zaria’s death was a devastating tragedy, and we are deeply sorry to her family for their loss and continued pain. Like prosecutors across the state, we respect the right of anyone to disagree with our decisions – which for every county attorney is inevitable.”
“But at the end of the day, after considering the wishes of the victims, the factors of youth, and what protects public safety in both the short and the long term, it is our responsibility to do everything in our power to reach what we think is a just outcome,” the statement said. “We know that the Attorney General wants retribution against this 15-year-old, but we believe our request for an initial juvenile sentence, along with the potential for a long adult prison sentence, gives us the best chance to protect public safety by investing in rehabilitation while still having accountability. We cannot reveal the individual factors that lead us to this conclusion, because they are confidential in any case involving a 15-year-old. But we believe, after a thorough investigation and a long deliberative process, this is the right result in this case.”
The 15-year-old’s plea deal will go before a judge Friday.
