Myon Burrell is free after state commutes life sentence
By David Pierini staff reporter
Myon Burrell, serving life for the fatal shooting of an 11-year-old girl, will be released from Stillwater prison after a state pardon board Tuesday commuted his sentence.
Burrell was 16 at the time of the shooting in 2002 and has maintained his innocence. He has served 18 years and the order commutes his sentence to 20 years “with the remainder to be served on supervised release.”
Myon Burrell during an interview with ABC News. Screenshot from ABC News/YouTube
Tyesha Edwards was killed by a stray bullet that entered her home in 2002; caught in the crossfire of rival gangs. While Burrell was identified as the shooter by two jailhouse informants and convicted twice, advocates for his release maintained prosecutors ignored a credible alibi and relied on dubious witnesses in a rush to get a conviction.
Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison voted on Burrell’s commutation. A third member, Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea, recused herself because of prior involvement in Burrell’s case.
In a hearing streamed on the Department of Correction’s Facebook page, Burrell put a hand over his heart as Walz and Ellison voted. Friends and fellow inmates described Burrell as a model inmate who rose at a young age to be elected the Imam of the Muslim community in Stillwater prison.
“Mr. Burrell, you’ve talked about extracting poison and bringing medicine,” Walz said. “It’s obvious to me that you have the power to make a difference.”
Burrell’s release plan includes living with his wife in North Minneapolis and receiving job training and employment through a program at Masjid An-Nur, a mosque on Lyndale Avenue North.
“I say to you we are ready, willing and able to support him,” Imam Makram Al-Amin of Masjid An-Nur. “We are asking you to allow him to come and join this community and we will stand by him.”
A national panel organized by Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions and the Innocence Project, issued a report earlier this month recommending Burrell’s release. It questioned the deals prosecutors offered six witnesses. It also accused police of not properly investigating an alibi offered by Burrell’s girlfriend and prosecutors for ignoring a witness who fingered someone else as the shooter.
One witness later confessed to the shooting.
Burrell’s case received national attention after Sen. Amy Klobuchar highlighted the case during a run for president as an example of justice served during her time as the Hennepin County Prosecutor.
Activists began pressuring state and county officials for Burrell’s release after an Associated Press report brought to light inconsistencies and witness accounts that cast doubt on the case. Klobuchar has since supported a re-examination of the case and the sentence.
“(Spending) all of these years for a crime I didn’t commit was very painful,” Burrell said during the hearing. “But I believe that there are blessings in the struggles and I overcame those struggles by the grace of my creator.”