The Power of Data:

Prosecutorial Approaches to Remedying Racial Disparities

Thursday, June 20, 2024 • 1:00pm EST

Join the IIP on Thursday, June 20th at 1:00 PM ET for a webinar on how prosecutors can collect and use data to reduce racial disparities in the justice system. Joining our conversation are:

  • Mary F. Moriarty, County Attorney, Hennepin County, MN;

  • Steve Descano, Commonwealth’s Attorney, Fairfax County, VA; 

  • Allison C. Pierre, Founder and CEO, Innovative Prosecution Consulting;

  • Alex Chohlas-Wood, Professor, NYU Steinhardt School; and

  • Moderator: Rachel Marshall, Executive Director, Institute for Innovation in Prosecution

Data is at the core of prosecutorial approaches to remedy injustices in the legal system. Local prosecutors in offices of all sizes can benefit from building and utilizing data infrastructure that informs and measures the impact of policy decisions. Join us to learn more about how prosecutors and data scientists have collaborated to build cutting-edge systems with the potential to reshape relationships between communities and the justice system.

Mary F. Moriarty

Hennepin County Attorney (MN)

Mary Moriarty is the elected Hennepin County Attorney. Moriarty was elected in 2022 and previously served as the Hennepin County Chief Public Defender for 6 years (2014 – 2020). As the County Attorney, Moriarty serves as the chief executive of Minnesota’s largest public law office.

Moriarty grew up in New Ulm, Minnesota. Her mother, Linda, was an English teacher, and her father, Patrick, served as Itasca County Attorney from 1963-1969 and was later a public defender in New Ulm. After high school, Moriarty attended Macalester College, where she played softball and basketball and majored in history and political science, earning her Bachelor of Arts in 1986. In 1989, she earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Minnesota Law School. After clerking for Hennepin County Judge Kevin Burke, Moriarty joined the Hennepin County Public Defender's Office.

Early in her career as a public defender, Moriarty argued a case that would eventually go to the U.S. Supreme Court. A Minneapolis police officer had patted down a man and claimed he could feel through the man's jacket that a small lump was crack cocaine, justifying the search. Moriarty argued that it would have been impossible to identify the lump as drugs. On June 7, 1993, the high court unanimously agreed, ruling that the officer had exceeded the limits of a legal pat-down. The case (Minnesota v. Dickerson) established what is referred to across the United States as the “plain feel doctrine.”

In 2014, after spending 25 years as a public defender, Moriarty was selected as Hennepin County's first female chief public defender. As chief, Moriarty oversaw some 45,000 cases per year and managed a staff of 140 attorneys and over 70 support staff including investigators, dispositional advisors, paralegals, IT personnel, legal office assistants and law clerks. An independent evaluation from the National Center for State Courts stated that under Moriarty's leadership, Hennepin County had one of the best public defender offices in the country, one that was as successful as a private law firm. Moriarty retired from the public defender's office in 2020.

During the trial of Derek Chauvin, Moriarty provided on-air legal commentary and analysis to various local and national media outlets including MSNBC, BBC, CBS, FOX, and TPT.

Moriarty was elected County Attorney in 2022. As County Attorney, Moriarty manages a staff of over 500 people with an annual budget of $78 million. The County Attorney sets policies and priorities for prosecuting criminal cases, oversees child protection and child support cases, and provides legal advice and representation to county government. Hennepin County is the largest local government in Minnesota and has a $2.6 billion annual budget with 9,000 employees.

Steve Descano

Commonwealth’s Attorney, Fairfax, VA

Steve Descano is the elected Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax. A West Point graduate, Steve served as a U.S. Army Aviation Officer before putting himself through law school and becoming a federal prosecutor. He served in the Obama Administration’s Justice Department for six years, specializing in the prosecution of complex financial crimes. In 2015, he served as the Fairfax NAACP’s first representative to the county’s Police Civilian Review Panel.

Since taking office in 2020, Steve has undertaken a reform agenda aimed at mitigating racial and socioeconomic disparities and countering mass incarceration in Fairfax County’s Justice System. Under his leadership, the Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney has decreased the use of pretrial detention, launched multiple diversion programs, and built a comprehensive data infrastructure, all while keeping Fairfax County the safest community of its size.

Allison C. Pierre

Founder and CEO, Innovative Prosecution Consulting

Allison C. Pierre is an innovator. In 2021, she founded Innovative Prosecution Consulting (IPC) because she wanted to use technology to spur reform with state prosecutor offices. Her data team is comprised of data scientists from American University’s School of Department of Justice, Law & Criminology. Before IPC, Allison graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University and holds a J.D. from American University’s Washington College of law. 

She launched her career at the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. She served in the trial and appellate bureaus and later became an associate in complex commercial litigation law firms in Manhattan. She also tried cases as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Attorneys’ Office in D.C.  After founding IPC, prosecutor reform became her new path and passion.

IPC works with state prosecutor offices to analyze their internal data, assist them in implementing reform policies, and showcase the results to their communities. IPC partners with creative, reform-minded elected district attorneys’ hungry for change. In July 2021, IPC’s pilot program launched at the Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney’s Office in VA. IPC also works with the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office in Atlanta.

Allison serves on the advisory board for the National District Attorney’s Association’s Prosecutor Research Collaborative and is active with the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section.

Alex Chohlas-Wood

Professor, NYU Steinhardt

Alex Chohlas-Wood is an incoming assistant professor at NYU Steinhardt and helps lead the Computational Policy Lab at Harvard Kennedy School. He investigates how computational approaches can improve public policy in applied collaborations with government agencies. He received a PhD in computational social science from Stanford, and previously served as the director of analytics at the New York City Police Department.

Rachel Marshall

Executive Director, Institute for Innovation in Prosecution

Rachel Marshall is the Executive Director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution.

Rachel previously served as the Director of Communications and Policy Advisor at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, following nearly a decade working as a public defender in Alameda County, California.  Rachel has extensive expertise in the criminal legal system and efforts to reform it, as well as experience in media, policy, and advocacy.

Rachel graduated from Stanford Law School and Brown University.  After law school, she clerked for federal District Court Judge David O. Carter in the Central District of California.  Prior to law school, she taught high school history for three years in the Bronx.