Panel Of Experts Recommends Myon Burrell Be Released From Prison

the Minnesota Reformer

By J. Patrick Coolican

December 8, 2020

An investigative report released by a panel of experts Tuesday says Myon Burrell, who was 16 when he was convicted of killing 11-year old Tyesha Edwards in 2002, should be released from prison because “no fundamental goal of sentencing is served by Burrell’s continued incarceration.”

The report of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law and the Innocence Project also raises questions about Burrell’s conviction, though they were unable to come to a final determination because they need more materials from the Hennepin County attorney’s office.

Burrell will appear before the Minnesota Pardon Board on Dec. 15.

The Burrell case became an issue in the 2020 race for the Democratic presidential nomination because Sen. Amy Klobuchar was the Hennepin County attorney at the time of the conviction and highlighted the case in TV ads during her Senate runs to bolster her tough-on-crime credentials. An Associated Press investigation earlier this year also found problems with the conviction.

The report points to the possibility Burrell was set up by jailhouse informants in the Family Mob gang, which was in conflict with his own.

“The informants’ testimony was obtained through a series of extraordinarily generous plea deals of a type known to incentivize informants to provide ‘helpful’ testimony rather than true testimony,” according to the report.

By contrast, according to the report, “The four known witnesses in this case who gave testimony tending to exonerate Burrell had no interest in the outcome one way or the other — and yet were apparently disregarded by prosecutors.”

But the report also says investigators were unable to make a firm conclusion about the conviction because they have not received important documents and records from the Hennepin County Attorney’s office, which has faced a challenging environment during the pandemic.

The report recommends that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s newly-created Conviction Review Unit continue the re-investigation.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..