If leniency for teens is wrong, why is Tyesha's killer free?

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Earlier this month Gov. Tim Walz announced that he was appointing Attorney General Keith Ellison to take over the prosecution in the murder of Zaria McKeever. This followed public outcry over Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty's ridiculous decision to offer lenient plea bargains to the two juveniles allegedly involved in the crime. The governor's move was widely welcomed.

In his statement, Walz said, "My heart breaks for the McKeever family" and vowed that "we will not tolerate violent crime in Minnesota."

Ellison said, "any offender who commits such a horrible murder should serve years in prison" and "the court should not allow [the 15-year-old accused] to avoid punishment and then terrorize the McKeever family and the rest of the community."

I agree with those statements. But my response is: "What about Tyesha?"

Tyesha Edwards was 11 years old in 2002. While she was sitting at her kitchen table doing homework a bullet came through the wall and struck her in the heart. Tyesha died almost immediately in front of her 8-year-old sister.

In December 2020, Gov. Walz and Attorney General Ellison, as members of the Minnesota Board of Pardons, voted to commute Burrell's sentence to the time he had already served, effectively cutting his life sentence in half. It appears that one of the motivating factors in their decision was Burrell's age at the time of the murder. The governor, reading from his prepared remarks, declared, "We have to stop incarcerating our children."

Another motivating factor was a report prepared by a group of six supposedly neutral experts released just prior to the pardon hearing. This group was chaired by Prof. Mark Osler from the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

This report found no further benefit to the continued incarceration of Burrell. This, in spite of the fact that Burrell has never accepted responsibility for his actions and could therefore not claim that he'd been rehabilitated.

The report also raised doubts about the validity of Burrell's conviction, a conclusion that did not go unnoticed by the governor and attorney general. Their report echoed stories published in the local media which promoted the false narrative of Burrell's innocence.

I was the prosecutor during Burrell's second trial. I submit that no reasonable person reviewing the entire record could conclude that Burrell was innocent of Tyesha's murder. I prepared a 162-page report to substantiate my position, and for two years have been encouraging the local media to print the truth about Burrell.

Osler's group supported Burrell's claim of alibi. They said that early in his interrogation he claimed that he was at Cup Foods at the time of Tyesha's murder, and that he had since consistently maintained this position. They said that Minneapolis police failed to properly investigate this alibi.

In truth, Burrell had a revolving door of alibis. First he claimed he was babysitting his son in Bemidji. Then he said he was with his cousin Romero Spellman. Then he said he was at Cup Foods but claimed to not to know the names of the people he was with (even though he had known them for years), precluding the officers from conducting follow-up interviews to verify his story.

In recorded phone calls from jail he said he was at the homes of either Shiron Edwards or James Graham, depending on who he was talking to at the time.

At his first trial Burrell urged his attorney to contact Graham, who was subpoenaed and testified that Burrell was at his house the entire afternoon of the day of the murder. Graham's house was several blocks from Cup Foods.

At his second trial however, Burrell switched gears and said that he was with Jillian Sully, who now works for Keith Ellison, and who testified that Burrell was with her outside of Cup Foods when the murder happened.

Another point Osler's committee overlooked was that Burrell confessed, in detail, to another inmate in his cell block at the Hennepin County jail. Another inmate in that same cell block confirmed these conversations.

I bring Tyesha's case to the public's attention for two reasons. First, the statements the governor and attorney general made after the McKeever case was transferred could have easily been made about Tyesha's killing. Certainly the governor's heart should have broken for the Edwards' family. Certainly Tyesha's murder was a violent crime that should not be tolerated.

Why did these state officials apply one standard for Tyesha's case and another for Zaria McKeever? Don't both families deserve the same measure of justice?

My second reason is to inform the public about the truth about Myon Burrell, and to continue to encourage the local media to expose the truth about his case. This is important because Burrell now seeks to have his convictions vacated vis-a-vis Ellison's Conviction Review Unit. If successful, he stands to receive over $1 million for his "wrongful incarceration." This means that Burrell will have murdered an innocent child, gotten away with it, and become a millionaire for doing it. How's that for justice?

Tyesha's family has suffered immeasurably from Burrell's conduct. If losing a loved one was not bad enough, they've had to endure endless stories that promote the false narrative of her killer's innocence, and risk bumping into him somewhere in the community. They've asked what they've done to deserve this.

So then, what about Tyesha?