Minnesota’s Conviction Review Unit says man convicted of 2008 murder should be free

Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office said a man convicted of a Minneapolis murder more than 15 years ago should walk free, following a renewed investigation into the case. That man’s fate lies in the hands of a judge. 

In 2009, then-26-year-old Edgar Rene Barrientos-Quintana began a life sentence with no parole. He was convicted for the murder of Jesse Mickelson, a teenager who was shot near Roosevelt High School in October 2008.

But after a three-year investigation, Minnesota’s Conviction Review Unit concluded there is “ample evidence” supporting Barrientos-Quintana’s innocence claim. The Attorney General’s Office, which houses the unit, stated in a press release Wednesday that jurors never heard key evidence that would have “created reasonable doubt in an already skeptical jury.”

The unit also reports there were glaring issues with eyewitness accounts, which the case largely hinged upon, and that the state did not accurately portray crucial pieces of evidence.

A phone record — which had not been presented to the jury at the time — shows Barrientos-Quintana was at his girlfriend’s Maplewood apartment 27 minutes after the shooting. Security camera footage also confirms Barrientos-Quintana was at an east Saint Paul grocery store 33 minutes before the incident.

“Mr. Barrientos could not have made the journey to and from the crime scene in less than an hour,” a press release from the Attorney General’s Office reads. 

The CRU also determined that interviews with juvenile witnesses were “coercive.” Investigators reportedly incentivized one witness, who had been an early suspect in the case, to testify that Barrientos-Quintana was the shooter and he had been beside him in a drive-by vehicle.

When the juvenile did testify, his account was “wildly inaccurate and inconsistent” with the state’s evidence, the report states.

Seven witnesses described the shooter as a Hispanic man with a bald or shaved head. Barrientos-Quintana, confirmed by video evidence, had dark hair that day — but investigators showed witnesses an outdated photo in which Barrientos-Quintana had a shaved head. One eyewitness pointed to similarities between the shooter and someone else’s photo — but that was not presented to the jury. 

Attorney Anna McGinn, who represents Barrientos-Quintana at the Great North Innocence Project, said eyewitness misidentification played a key role in the wrongful conviction of Marvin Haynes in a separate case. McGinn represented Haynes, who was cleared of a murder conviction last year after nearly two decades in prison. 

There are similarities between Haynes’ case and Barrientos-Quintana’s case. No physical evidence linked Haynes to the scene, whose appearance did not match eyewitness descriptions of the suspect, and the photo used in the police lineup was outdated and closer to eyewitness descriptions.

Nationwide, eyewitness misidentification has contributed to approximately 70 percent of wrongful convictions later exonerated through DNA, the Innocence Project reports. 

“All these cases are absolute tragedies. I mean, in this instance, you have Jesse Mickelson, who has been shot and lost his life and his family is grieving that loss. That is a horrible tragedy,” McGinn said of the Barrientos-Quintana case. “And you also have, we believe, an individual that’s innocent and has lost a lot of his life, and his family and the community has missed out on him.”

Doug Mickelson, the father of the teenager who was killed, said the news is like “tearing a scab off an old wound.” He said his addiction relapsed in 2008 after he lost his son, who was an aspiring musician.

Mickelson spent a decade getting sober, through the help of his faith, and no longer harbors resentment toward the person who shot his son. Still, it’s a lot to wrap his head around, he said.

“We thought it was all cut and dried and now they’re saying that’s not true,” he said. “It was kind of like a punch from out of nowhere to the gut. If he didn’t do it, then we’re back to square one. Who did it, you know?”

Barrientos-Quintana, now 41, remains in MCF-Rush City, a prison one tier below maximum security. 

He filed a petition for post-conviction relief in the Hennepin County District Court Tuesday, seeking a dismissal of all charges against him.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office says attorney Mary Moriarty is reviewing the 180-page report. 

“The allegations revealed by the attorney general's investigation and described in the defense pleading are deeply concerning,” Moriarty said in a statement. “We know that this litigation is painful for everyone — both the family of the victim and the family of Edgar Barrientos-Quintana — and we will work to respond as soon as possible.”

Hennepin County Judge John McBride will ultimately decide whether to grant Barrientos-Quintana post-conviction relief.

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