Man convicted in 1998 murder will be freed but not exonerated

For more than 26 years, Brian Pippitt has been imprisoned for a brutal murder for which the state’s top prosecutorial agency now says he is innocent.

On Wednesday, Pippitt learned he will soon be free.

The Minnesota Board of Pardons voted 2-1 to commute Pippitt’s life sentence, three years before he was eligible for parole.

Now 63 and suffering from diabetes and other ailments, Pippitt was convicted of first-degree murder in the brutal 1998 slaying of an 84-year-old proprietor of a convenience store north of Mille Lacs Lake.

Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison voted for the commutation, focusing on Pippitt’s age and health as well as his having served more time in prison than his four alleged accomplices combined.

The governor and attorney general both said they believe in Pippitt’s innocence after a two-year investigation by the state’s new Conviction Review Unit, or CRU, recommended full exoneration. But they agreed that guilt or innocence ought to be determined through the court system.

The third member of the board, Minnesota Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, voted against the commutation. She focused on how competing theories of the case remain. The theory of Pippitt’s innocence, argued by Pippitt’s attorneys with the Great North Innocence Project and the national innocence nonprofit Centurion Ministries, was detailed in the CRU report.

“You are asking us to be finders of fact. You are asking us to weigh credibility,” Hudson said. “I have a difficult time doing that when the reporting entities don’t even agree.”

Jim Cousins, a Centurion Ministries attorney who has been fighting for Pippitt for more than a decade, said his organization will continue to work for Pippitt’s exoneration, whether through the courts or via a full pardon.

“We’re delighted he’s not going to have to serve the rest of his sentence, [but] we’ll be proceeding aggressively to show that he’s innocent,” Cousins said.

Flanked by one of his attorneys in the geriatric unit of the state prison, Pippitt attended the meeting adjacent to the Capitol in St. Paul by video conference. He read haltingly from a short prepared speech, at one point appearing to choke up as he talked about the loved ones he has lost while in prison.

“The shame, the hate of people thinking I am responsible for not only the death of an elderly woman but the rumors associated with a crime such as this — the fact the truth would surface has kept me going throughout the years," he said. “I hope to find work and live the rest of the time I have left on this earth in peace.”

If Pippitt’s argument for commutation had focused on mercy instead of innocence, Guida said, he wouldn’t have opposed it.

“It’s all about politics,” Guida said. “This is not a fight against Brian Pippitt. This is about the truth. My concern is the Conviction Review Unit getting anyone they can out of prison and somehow justify their jobs by questioning the system.”

Walz pointed out the commutations are rare in Minnesota — about a half-dozen in the past several decades, he said. Ellison said that the CRU’s work proves Minnesota’s criminal justice system is largely working well; of the more than 1,200 applications it has received the past few years, Pippitt’s is only the third one where it has recommended relief.

“This question of innocence is incredibly important,” Walz said. “In this space, I am concerned on the safety, the rehabilitation and the chance for justice. Mr. Pippitt’s innocence matters, but I’m very cognizant that we follow the process.”

Pippitt is expected to be released in the next few months.

“We’ll have a dinner and a celebration — not going all out, but a dinner where all of us can be together," she said.