I read through the Myon Burrell case a bunch of times and it seems like the most tangential thing you could ever attack someone with. Prosecutors don't actually convict defendants, and Klobuchar wasn't even that involved in the case:
Amy Klobuchar has often spoken about her prosecution of the teenager in an 11-year-old girl’s murder. This week, an Associated Press report pointed to flaws in the case.
www.nytimes.com
In a telephone interview Friday night Daniel Guerrero, a lawyer for Mr. Burrell who has represented him since 2017, said that while he believed the authorities could have more rigorously followed up on leads and alibis, he did not think, based on his review, that Ms. Klobuchar had done “anything specifically wrong.”
“I don’t think she had much to do with the case,” he said, noting that line prosecutors had handled it. “She stepped back and let them do what they were doing.”
“The one thing I would say about Senator Klobuchar is that I wish she would stop citing the Edwards case as an example of her being aggressive prosecutor,” Mr. Guerrero added. “Though certainly tragic that an 11-year-old girl died, it’s equally as bad that a 16-year-old boy was likely wrongfully convicted and sentenced to a life term in the face of an aggressive and often short sighted prosecution."
Mr. Guerrero said that his client had already appealed his conviction several times and that “at this point we would have to bring in evidence of actual innocence” to get the case back into court. “We’re still investigating and hoping to get a wrongly convicted individual out,” he said.
Furthermore, the case has gone to appeal multiple times and the conviction was upheld -- with no action from Klobuchar. Was it a bad idea to talk about it? Yeah. It's lurid and exploitative to bring up the Edwards case in the first place regardless of whether we agree with the verdict. But that's the kind of circus act the public likes.
You want to attack Klobuchar on policy, fine. On things she
actually did, sure. But because an office she oversaw made one mistake in eight years? What's the standard here, exactly? Nobody who has ever been a prosecutor can be President?
Bonus points:
"Ms. Klobuchar ran the Hennepin County attorney’s office from 1999 through 2006 and oversaw Mr. Burrell’s first trial, conviction and sentencing in 2003. That conviction was eventually reversed by the Minnesota Supreme Court, which found that a key statement made by Mr. Burrell should not have been used in the trial; Ms. Klobuchar was succeeded by Mike Freeman, the current Hennepin County attorney, who oversaw a second trial for Mr. Burrell, in which he was also convicted and sentenced to life in prison, officials said. Mr. Burrell was 16 at the time of the shooting and is now 33. "
I believe in due process, but as
an individual, if ill-gotten evidence seems to show someone's guilt, it lowers my sympathy threshold. Furthermore, the alibi everyone's talking about was in the news during the second trial in 2008:
Two men convicted for roles in Tyesha Edwards' death say the man charged with shooting the 11-year-old girl in 2002 wasn't with them. They talked of a third man.
www.startribune.com
Was the conviction wrong? Maybe. Klobuchar's fault? Doesn't look like it.
Now, was the
sentence wrong? Abso-fuckin'-lutely. Life in prison for a 16 year old for involvement in a gang murder is downright ridiculous. But nobody's willing to open that can of worms...
thehill.com
