A Minnesota man is free after 16 years in prison for a murder that prosecutors say he didn’t commit – Austin Daily Herald

MINNEAPOLIS – A Minnesota man has been released from prison after serving 16 years for a murder he did not commit, a local prosecutor announced Tuesday.

Jurors found Edgar Barrientos-Quintana guilty in 2009 of killing 18-year-old Jesse Mickelson in a drive-by shooting. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. But after a three-year investigation, Attorney General Keith Ellison’s Conviction Review Unit released a scathing report in August on the Minneapolis Police Department’s original investigation, which also cited evidence supporting Barrientos-Quintana’s alibi.

A judge approved Barrientos-Quintana’s release last week.

“Nothing can give Mr. Barrientos-Quintana those sixteen years back, and for that we are so sorry,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement Tuesday. “Our thoughts are also with the family of Jesse Mickelson at their irreparable loss. When the criminal justice system does not function ethically, it causes significant harm.”

In a ruling Wednesday vacating Barrientos-Quintana’s convictions and ordering his release, Judge John McBride ruled that Barrientos-Quintana had not received a fair trial.

Barrientos-Quintana’s attorney failed to effectively represent him and prosecutors failed to disclose favorable evidence, Moriarty said. Investigators also used coercive lineup and interrogation tactics, resulting in unreliable eyewitness identifications, she added.

Security footage captured Barrientos-Quintana at a grocery store shortly before the shooting, and the attorney general’s office pointed to phone records not submitted at trial that placed him at his girlfriend’s suburban apartment shortly after the shooting. The Conviction Review Unit determined that he could not have traveled to and from the crime scene during that time.

The reviewers also blamed the police, who showed an old photo of Barrientos-Quintana with a shaved head to eyewitnesses who had described the suspect as bald. Security footage showed Barrientos-Quintana had short, dark hair at the time of the shooting.

Barrientos-Quintana asked McBride last month to vacate his conviction based on Ellison’s report. In September, Moriarty revealed that Mickelson’s sisters believed Barrientos-Quintana was innocent and supported his release.