Outrage as 'America's Wokest Prosecutor' Negotiates Wild Sentencing Concession for Man Convicted of TWO Murders

The families of two murder victims are speaking out after a controversial plea agreement allows the man who admitted killing both of their loved ones to serve his prison sentences concurrently.

Marquez Hill-Turnipseed, 24, confessed to two separate killings three years apart, but the deal means he will receive one 40-year prison term rather than consecutive sentences.

Hill-Turnipseed admitted to the 2022 drive-by shooting death of Eloe Lomax and the 2025 killing of Stageina Whiting, an innocent bystander caught in gunfire at Minneapolis' Boom Island.

Under a plea agreement negotiated by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty's office, the sentences for the two murders will run at the same time, according to The Daily Mail.

Because Minnesota inmates can become eligible for release after serving roughly two-thirds of their sentence, Hill-Turnipseed could potentially be out of prison in less than 27 years, when he is around 50.

Whiting's mother, Tasha Blanks, questioned why the two cases were combined.

"They were two different people. They should have made trial on two different cases, not put together," Blanks told KARE 11. "He did them at two different times. Like, no."

Lomax's mother, Talanda Burks, was equally outraged.

"He murdered my son first, and it should have been time for Eloe's murder, then the young lady's," she said. "And it shouldn't have been joined together. He ruined two families."

Whiting's aunt, TT Toni, added, "How can you combine two lives together?"

"This child had a whole life over here. And this child had a whole life over here. So this family is grieving differently. They lost so much over there with their son. We lost, this baby will have to grow up without her mother," she added.

The agreement has once again thrust Moriarty into the center of the debate over progressive criminal justice policies.

Critics have branded the Minneapolis prosecutor one of America's "wokest" prosecutors, accusing her office of taking an overly lenient approach to charging and sentencing defendants.

Moriarty, a former longtime public defender, became Hennepin County attorney in 2023 after campaigning as a reform-minded prosecutor.

Judge Michael Burns acknowledged the families' anger before accepting the negotiated agreement.

"I certainly don't see my job here as a rubber stamp for anything that the lawyers do," Burns said. "I understand people might not be happy with the negotiation in this case, but I'm going to follow the negotiation in this case."

Hill-Turnipseed apologized before sentencing but angered relatives when he attempted to compare their grief with what his own family would experience during his incarceration.

"My family got to go through the same thing," Hill-Turnipseed said.

Burns immediately rejected the comparison.

"I'm looking at you right now," the judge told him. "You have not lost your life in the same way the family of Eloe and Stageina have."

Moriarty's office defended the deal, arguing that no prison sentence can quantify the value of the two lives lost.

"The number of years any defendant is sentenced to serve has never and will never reflect the value of the person whose life they took," a spokesman said.

"That value is incalculable and the loss leaves scars that will never heal. "Our decisions on which resolutions to seek are guided most heavily by case strategy and public safety," the statement continued. "Mr. Hill-Turnipseed will be removed for decades from the community he harmed."