Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is under fire for his role in the 2020 commutation of Myon Burrell, a man twice convicted for the killing of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards. Burrell, who was a teenager at the time of the 2002 incident, is now facing serious gun and drug charges.
Walz, a member of the Minnesota Board of Pardons in 2020, voted to commute Burrell’s sentence, claiming that a life sentence for a teenager was too much and urging the victim’s family to recognize that “times had changed” and “justice is not served by incarcerating a child for his entire lifetime for a horrible mistake committed many years ago.”
The Daily Mail writes that Myon Burrell, then 16, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison after a stray bullet killed 11-year-old girl Tyesha Edwards while she was doing her homework at her dining room table in Hennepin County, Minnesota, in 2002.
Police said that the bullet was fired by Burrell, who was aiming it at a rival gang member at the time.
He was charged as an adult with first-degree murder by then-prosecutor Amy Klobuchar, now a Democrat United States senator, who used the conviction to bolster her political career.
Burrell refused to take any plea deals and maintained his innocence.
After his first conviction was set aside by the state Supreme Court in 2003, he was retried and convicted again in 2009.
Since his release, Burrell has been arrested twice. In September 2023, he was charged with gun and drug felonies after police found a handgun and drugs in his vehicle. A second arrest followed in May 2024, when authorities discovered illegal drugs and $60,000 in cash in his apartment.
Burrell’s jury trial for his 2023 arrest begins in Hennepin County on Monday morning, according to court records reviewed by The New York Post.
The newspaper noted that Jimmie Edwards III, Tyesha’s brother, has spoken out against 2020, saying how the commutation was hard for his family to hear for their mother.
“When she lost our sister, it took her away. She was never able to recover,” Edwards III said of his and Tyesha’s mother. “I’m glad my mom is not here to witness this, because it would just break her heart.”
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