Martha Holton Dimick says she has been serving her community since 1999, when she became the first community prosecutor assigned to North Minneapolis. She worked as a Hennepin County prosecutor for ten years, then as the Deputy Attorney for the City of Minneapolis. In 2012 Dimick was appointed judge in the 4th District - where she ruled on serious crimes until retiring last year.
Dimick says it’s her experience that sets her apart from Mary Moriarty, her opponent in the race for Hennepin County Attorney:
“I have the whole entire scope and understanding of how the criminal justice system works from the start - charging a crime - to the actual disposition of a case,” said Dimick. “I am by far the most qualified candidate, I, we represent victims of crime, we make sure that justice is served. And we try to do it and we always commit to doing it on an equitable basis. My opponent is a career public defender, and she's worked the exact opposite side of a case representing criminals. So that's the distinction in a nutshell.”
Dimick says she hopes to regrow the judicial system.
“We want to see - especially in the Minneapolis Police Department - we want to see more black and brown police officers hired, and we’d like to see better training,” she said. “I think the culture is damaged. And I think that the training within the police department would probably be an unbiased approach, it would be a new approach, it would not be the paramilitary type training that has been used in the past. I also think that I have to work with our justice partners, and that includes the probation departments, psychological services, our commissioners, our city council, our mayors - we have to work with everybody to make sure that we are all on the right page, we are all moving towards an unbiased system.”
Dimick says as Hennepin County Attorney she would like to expand diversion programs that help to keep youth out of the criminal legal system, but that will require increased funding.
Early voting for the general election opens this Friday, September 23rd.