The Claims Bill
During the final week of the 2026 legislative session, the joint House-Senate Subcommittee on Claims identified the tort claims against the state that it recommended be paid out. This year there were four claims approved totaling $5.1 million. The full House and Senate approved the Claims bill last week and Governor Walz approved the compensation payments with his signature yesterday.
One of those claims totaled $4.5 million – to be paid to Marvin Haynes who was imprisoned for nearly 20 years after being convicted of murdering a flower shop owner during a robbery in North Minneapolis in 2004. Haynes was sentenced to life in prison for the murder, but the sentence was vacated nearly 20 years later following a questionable process. His compensation is believed to be the largest in state history for such a claim.
Vacating Haynes’s conviction
In January 2023 Mary Moriarty was elected as the Hennepin County Attorney. Later that summer, Marvin Haynes filed a petition for post-conviction relief, despite being over 15 years past the legal deadline to do so – an issue county attorneys should oppose in their role in the adversarial justice system.
Not Mary Moriarty – she not only didn’t oppose Haynes petition, she joined it by working in concert with the Great Northern Innocence Project (GNIP) to hold a hearing to relitigate the facts of Haynes’s conviction 20 years after the fact – a conviction that had already been upheld by the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and a conviction the Minnesota Supreme Court looked at and denied further appeal on.
Following the hearing in December 2023, Moriarty filed a joint proposed order with the GNIP for the judge to sign which vacated Haynes’s conviction. Haynes was set free that day. He subsequently filed suit against the State of Minnesota for compensation under the Imprisonment and Exoneration Remedies Act.
I wrote a comprehensive article in December 2023 detailing the injustices carried out during the process to overturn Haynes’s conviction. Given the outrageous taxpayer funded compensation now being awarded to Haynes, it’s appropriate to reprint that article in its entirety.
An important note before I do. There is growing sentiment to use Haynes’s overturned conviction to criticize Senator Amy Klobuchar, the Hennepin County Attorney when Haynes was originally convicted. There are plenty of issues with which to criticize Senator Klobuchar – aggressively prosecuting Haynes for committing a violent murder during an armed robbery is not one of them.
Senator Klobuchar is now distancing herself from Haynes’s conviction, but make no mistake, the prosecution of Haynes in 2005 was justified and the evidence presented to the jury and the Court of Appeals during this time – both contemporaneous with the murder – was vigorously litigated and properly presented. Senator Klobuchar was right to support Haynes’s prosecution in 2005 and should not run from that decision in 2026.
A reprint of our 2023 article detailing Haynes’s conviction
The case of Marvin Haynes
We should all be proud to live in a country where people are considered innocent until proven guilty.
Marvin Haynes was proven guilty of a 2004 first-degree murder, committed during the armed robbery of a flower shop in north Minneapolis.
Police developed probable cause that Haynes was the shooter and arrested him. Two eyewitnesses picked Haynes out of photo lineups (the victim’s sister, exclaiming “Oh my God, that’s him,” upon seeing Haynes’ photo) and both later identified Haynes in an in-person lineup and in court to varying degrees. Several of Haynes’ friends and relatives gave police statements indicating Haynes had become involved in armed robberies, that he was intent on committing a robbery the day of the murder, that he had been carrying a chrome revolver in the weeks leading up to the murder (the type of gun used in this murder), and that he made comments about “shooting an old white man” contemporaneously with the murder at the flower shop.
The county attorney’s office reviewed the evidence and independently agreed that probable cause existed to charge Haynes with murder.
A Hennepin County Grand Jury listened to the evidence against Haynes and agreed that probable cause existed to indict him with first degree murder.
A respected Hennepin County District Court Judge presided over evidentiary hearings and the trial and made legal decisions to ensure Haynes received a fair trial.
Haynes made no pre-trial appeals regarding evidence presented against him.
Haynes was tried before a jury of his peers in 2005. The jury listened to testimony and reviewed evidence during the trial and determined Haynes was guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Haynes received an automatic appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court in 2007. The supreme court heard arguments from Haynes’ attorney, none of which included the claim or argument that the eyewitness identifications of Haynes were problematic. The supreme court denied Haynes’ appeal, ruling the district court had properly ruled on issues of law during the trial, and that there was no prosecutorial misconduct in the case.
Haynes was sentenced to life in prison.
Enter Mary Moriarty
Fast forward to 2022. Mary Moriarty, the former chief public defender in Hennepin County, announced her intention to completely turn the tables and run to become the county’s chief prosecutor. Many saw this as a disaster in the making and warned the electorate, to no avail, against putting Moriarty in this position. Read some of these warnings here and here.
During the endorsement process, the Star Tribune said of Moriarty:
“…we’re concerned that her approach doesn’t adequately emphasize public safety. Moriarty also brings baggage after her stint as chief public defender ended in controversy related to social media posts, her managerial style, and tense relationship s with other leaders in the criminal justice system.”
And:
“…the Editorial Board remains concerned about her ability to transition from defender to prosecutor and to provide effective leadership for the office.”
Despite these concerns, Moriarty took over as the county’s chief prosecutor in January 2023. Within months Moriarty made clear she would be undermining the adversarial system of justice in Hennepin County, by joining forces with advocacy groups, defense attorneys, and using “science” to bring about her vision of justice and public safety in Hennepin County.
No fewer than a dozen families and victim advocacy groups have since gone public and spoken out against Moriarty and her decisions to either not prosecute, under prosecute, or seek to overturn convictions of violent criminals adjudicated decades earlier. Read more about this outrage here, here, and here.
Moriarty’s actions have in fact been outrageous and undermine Minnesota’s public safety and justice systems in 2023. Yet she asks the public to deny their eyes and believe that she is the righteous arbiter of justice.
The exoneration of Marvin Haynes
This summer, Haynes filed a Petition for Post-Conviction Relief, despite being over 15 years past the cutoff to legally do so. Moriarty waived the statutory time bar and the procedural bar on Haynes’ petition. Given these concessions by Moriarty, the court scheduled a post-conviction evidentiary hearing this fall.
I’ve learned that to some in attendance at the hearing, it was apparent that Moriarty’s office did not act as an adversarial check and balance against Haynes’ arguments and offered passive and limited cross examination of witnesses and evidence presented on behalf of Haynes.
Following the hearing Moriarty and the Innocence Project joined together to draft a 6-page order which claimed Haynes had been denied due process “because his conviction relied on constitutionally defective eyewitness identification evidence.” Moriarty agreed that “the interest of justice would be served by dismissing with prejudice all charges against Petitioner in this matter” and vacating his murder conviction.
This week Judge Willian Koch signed that order and Haynes was released to the street following a hearing held for that purpose in the Hennepin County Government Center.
This revisionist approach to evaluating decades old convictions that were properly tried and for which multiple appeals have been considered and rejected has been particularly troubling. It’s a dangerous path that needs to be closed for all but the most persuasive and clear-cut cases involving, for example, indisputable DNA evidence.
Attacking eyewitness identifications decades after the fact, especially when those identifications were not called into question contemporaneously with the trial, is just pure nonsense. Tragically it attacks and undermines the value of this critical evidence going forward.
The importance of our adversarial system
Our justice system is built on a foundation of fairness and balance, using the well-conceived “adversarial” system where the parties are each tasked with representing their interests by presenting evidence and arguments before a neutral judge and a jury of peers.
“The adversarial system of justice serves to make sure that, not only in the specific case on trial, but in general proceedings, that prejudice and corruption do not result in wrongful convictions or mistreatment of others…”
Study.com
The balanced approach provided by an adversarial model ensures our system of justice has historically been hailed as the gold standard.
Unfortunately, our system is under attack — from within. The balance is being undermined, and justice is suffering as a result.
The emergence of progressive prosecutors across the country, many who were former defense attorneys, has resulted in the inappropriate teaming of prosecutor and defense attorney in support of the defendant’s arguments. This is obviously problematic.
Can anyone envision a justice system in which the defense attorney teamed with the prosecution to help make the state’s arguments against the defendant? There would be revolt, and rightly so. Why then would anyone believe it’s appropriate for the prosecutor to abdicate making arguments on behalf of the state, while in turn making arguments on behalf of the defendant?
Haynes and all criminal defendants deserve a competent and vigorous defense. Our system depends on it. But when prosecutors intentionally abdicate their adversarial role, balance is destroyed, and justice suffers.
We should expect more of the same as more progressive defense minded attorneys seek key prosecutorial positions.
The following letter to local media was written by former Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Mike Furnstahl, the original prosecutor in Haynes’s murder trial.
“Among the bills recently passed by the Minnesota legislature was an award of $4.5 million to Marvin Haynes, Jr. for his purportedly wrongful conviction of the murder of Randy Sherer. Haynes had been found guilty by a jury in 2006 and sentenced to life in prison. The Minnesota Supreme Court upheld Haynes’ conviction on appeal.
Haynes’ conviction was vacated only because of the immoral actions of Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, conduct which the legislature and local press have refused to examine.
The justification for Moriarty’s decision related solely to the procedures used to identify Haynes as the perpetrator of this crime. Those procedures were thoroughly litigated before the start of the trial. An experienced and respected judge found nothing improper. Haynes’ appellate counsel, also experienced and respected, was so convinced of the correctness of this decision that she never even raised the issue on appeal.
For 19 years Haynes sat silently in his cell, never complaining that he was wrongfully incarcerated. He filed no additional appeals or petitions for relief. He sought no publicity nor made claims that he was falsely convicted of the charges. He did nothing–that is until Mary Moriarty was elected Hennepin County Attorney.
In August of 2024, Moriarty stipulated that the identification procedures violated Haynes’ constitutional rights and vacated his conviction, overturning the decisions of the original trial judge and, by implication, the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Her unilateral decision had profound implications. It released a man properly convicted of a heinous crime without first providing the victims and public with a full and fair hearing justifying the reasons. It rewarded Haynes for his crime by making him a millionaire at taxpayer expense without first having a neutral judge examine and rule on the strength of the evidence. It was yet another of a long list of catastrophic decisions Moriarty has made that are contrary to her duty to protect the citizens she was elected to serve.
One would have to have been in a coma for the last 3 ½ years to not recognize the pro-criminal bias exhibited during Moriarty’s tenure. People will remember how Governor Walz was forced to take the unprecedented step of removing Moriarty from the case against Foday Kamary after she offered him an unspeakably lenient sentence for his part in the murder of Zaria McKeever. People will also remember how a district court judge refused to accept another lenient plea bargain Moriarty offered Husayn Bravehart who helped murder Steve Markey during a botched car jacking. Lastly, people can no doubt recall how Moriarty ultimately dismissed charges against Trooper Ryan Londegran for the fatal shooting of Ricky Cobb II after a Texas law firm, who had received almost $600K of tax payer money, told her there wasn’t a case to be made against the Trooper, and just before the Governor was again going to take the unusual step of removing the case from Moriarty’s office. These are but a few examples. Moriarty’s conduct in the Haynes case is no less egregious.
Marvin Haynes was not even entitled to a hearing on his post conviction petition. The law prohibited that relief unless Haynes could demonstrate that he possessed newly discovered evidence. Haynes could not since all of his complaints were a mere re-hashing of the issues he raised before trial. It was only because Moriarty agreed to waive the State’s objections that Haynes’ petition was allowed to proceed.
In addition, Haynes was allowed to introduce expert testimony on the question of the identification procedures, something prohibited under Minnesota case law. Again, Moriarty threw out the rule of law to favor a convicted murderer and allowed Haynes to admit evidence even the State was prohibited from using.
Third, and most appalling, Moriarty’s prosecutors were specifically instructed to not contest Haynes’ evidence. In effect, they were told to “take a dive.” This meant that Haynes’ petition was never going to be meaningfully contested, and the victims and public were cheated out of their right to a full and fair hearing.
I was the prosecutor that convicted Marvin Haynes in 2006. I followed Haynes’ postconviction petition with some interest, thinking that I would likely be a part of the State’s effort to contest it.
When I read that a witness testified to events that were different from what had actually occurred, I contacted the prosecutors involved to offer myself as a rebuttal witness. Anna Light and Adam Petras were then assigned to the case.
Ms. Light and Mr. Petras told me they weren’t interested in my testimony which I thought was curious. I then told them that I had been contacted by a reporter from KARE 11 who was covering the case, and who told me he “wanted to hear from someone who thought Haynes was guilty.” Petras then said he wasn’t surprised to hear that as they were under orders to not contest Haynes’ evidence. He wouldn’t tell me who specifically told them that but felt that Mary Moriarty was the source of the order.
This is outrageous and immoral conduct for a prosecutor. A review of the entire scenario makes it clear that the decision to vacate Haynes’ conviction was made long before his petition was even filed. The public deserves to know why. What did Moriarty get out of this? What was her reward? What, if anything, was she promised?
And it’s not over! Haynes’ greed is such that he’s not satisfied with a mere $4.5 million–he wants more. He still has a lawsuit pending against the Minneapolis Police Department. Perhaps it can be used to answer these questions. One can only hope that someone will stand up and, in the name of Randy Sherer, demand an explanation for Morarity’s immoral and unethical actions.”
