Top Minnesota court tosses conviction of cop who shot 911 caller

ST. PAUL, Minn. (CN) — Minnesota's highest court overturned the state’s first-ever conviction of a police officer for an on-the-job murder on Wednesday, in a move that threatens to invalidate Derek Chauvin’s conviction of the same crime for the death of George Floyd. 

The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the murder conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor, whose fatal shooting of 911 caller Justine Ruszczyk Damond in 2017 led to charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

Chief Justice Lorie Gildea found that third-degree murder was an inappropriate charge on the grounds that such a conviction requires that a defendant’s conduct not be directed specifically at the person killed. 

“The mental state necessary for depraved-mind murder… is a generalized indifference to human life,” Gildea wrote in the court’s opinion, “which cannot exist when the defendant’s conduct is directed with particularity at the person who is killed.” 

Noor shot and killed Damond, an Australian national, after she called police to report that she had heard a woman screaming in the alley behind her home in South Minneapolis. When Noor and partner Matthew Harrity arrived on the scene, Damond approached their car and Noor, surprised, shot her once in the abdomen. She died shortly afterward. 

A Hennepin County jury convicted Noor of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in 2019. That conviction, Gildea found, ignored a lengthy history of interpretation of the third-degree murder statute. 

“We have interpreted the phrase in question many times, and we have consistently held that the crime of depraved-mind murder is a general malice crime,” she wrote in the court’s opinion. 

“Our precedent confirms that Noor is correct in arguing that a person does not commit depraved-mind murder when the person’s actions are directed at a particular victim,” she added. “The particular-person exclusion is simply another way of saying that the mental state for depraved-mind murder is one of general malice.” 

The decision is likely the last word in a lengthy back-and-forth over interpretations of Minnesota’s third-degree murder statute. That dispute played a pivotal role in the lead-up to Noor’s colleague Derek Chauvin’s conviction for the murder of George Floyd. 

Noor and attorney Thomas Plunkett, who also represents Chauvin’s co-defendant J. Alexander Kueng, appealed Noor's conviction, arguing along the same lines as Gildea’s finding that a third-degree murder conviction requires a defendant to have taken actions dangerous to people other than the alleged murder victim. 

The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in February, creating an appellate hubbub in the ongoing case against Chauvin, against whom a third-degree murder charge had previously been dismissed. Plunkett and Noor appealed, and the state's high court heard oral arguments in June. There, attorneys for the state argued that the particular-person rule placed murder convictions almost completely out of reach. 

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a statement that he is disappointed by the court’s reversal of Noor’s third-degree murder conviction.

“The court overruled prior case law supporting the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office charging decision and we disagree with their analysis of the law. However, we respect and acknowledge that the Minnesota Supreme Court is the final arbiter in this matter,” Freeman said. “Accordingly, we must and do accept this result.”

Plunkett did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning. A spokesman for the state attorney general's office said they are still reviewing the decision and have no further comment.

The appeals court decision in Noor's case prompted an appeal by prosecutors seeking an order that Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill reinstate the third-degree murder charge against Chauvin. Following a decision by the court of appeals that its decisions held sway unless and until overturned by the Minnesota Supreme Court, Cahill did so and Chauvin was ultimately convicted on all charges against him. 

Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson declined to comment on the impact of Wednesday's decision on his client’s case.

Chauvin, sentenced to 22 years and 6 months in prison for Floyd’s murder, now faces federal civil rights charges. Minnesota criminal sentencing follows a defendant’s most severe conviction, so Chauvin’s sentence is unlikely to be disturbed by the overturning of Noor’s conviction. 

On remand, Noor himself is set for resentencing. Originally sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison, Noor now faces a range of up to 10 years in prison, but with no criminal history is likely to be sentenced to less than five years.

Professor Richard Frase, an emeritus professor of criminal law at the University of Minnesota’s School of Law, said he sympathized with Noor individually but was disappointed in the court’s decision. He said the removal of third-degree murder as an option for prosecutors in many criminal proceedings would necessarily push them up or down the chain to second-degree murder, a felony, or to second-degree manslaughter, which carries a much lighter sentence. 

“It eliminates an intermediate option,” Frase said. “I do think there’s a place for extremely reckless conduct, even if it’s only directed at one person, to be considered murder, not just manslaughter.”

“I have a lot of sympathy for the result, both because it was a split-second decision and because the law was unsettled on third-degree murder,” he clarified. “But to say that ‘well, we have this wonderful other charge…’ I disagree with that.” 

Frase also noted that the decision drastically reduced the odds of prosecutors bringing a third-degree murder charge against Kimberly Potter for the killing of Daunte Wright in April. Potter, who police sources say mistook her firearm for a Taser when she shot and killed the 20-year-old Black man, currently faces second- and third-degree manslaughter charges, but some activists have called for the addition of murder charges. 

“The court seems to bless the felony murder doctrine in these kinds of cases,” he said of the Noor decision. “I think Officer Potter could be [charged with second-degree murder]. I don’t think she should be.”

Frase added that the decision could open up a dialogue in the legislature to patch the “hole” in the murder statute, but that he hadn’t seen any signs of such an effort brewing. 

Noor's status as a Black Somali man and the first-ever police officer to be convicted of murder in Minnesota places him in a complicated position in relation to Minneapolis' ongoing battles over policing and race. Many in the Twin Cites' large Somali community rallied around Noor in the aftermath of Damond's killing, and some activists have pointed to his conviction for killing a white woman as evidence of separate justice systems for Black and white victims of police violence.

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