MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The local prosecutor and family of the victim are calling for a man’s murder conviction to be vacated after a review by the Minnesota attorney general concluded he’s innocent.
Jurors in 2009 found Edgar Barrientos-Quintana guilty 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 in August released a damning report of Minneapolis police’s original investigation that also cited evidence supporting Barrientos-Quintana’s alibi.
Barrientos-Quintana last month asked a judge to vacate his conviction based on the report. On Monday, the Hennepin County attorney and Mickelson’s sisters said they support his release.
“It’s been 16 years, but I would rather have no conviction than the wrong conviction,” Mickelson’s sister Tina Rosebear said at a news conference.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said she will dismiss charges against Barrientos-Quintana if the judge vacates his conviction.
Security footage placed Barrientos-Quintana at a grocery story shortly before the shooting, and the attorney general’s office pointed to phone records not presented 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 in that time.
The reviewers also cast blame on police, who showed an old photo of Barrientos-Quintana with a shaved head to eyewitnesses who had described the suspect as being bald. Security footage showed Barrientos-Quintana had short, dark hair at the time of the shooting.
“Unfortunately, after Mr. Barrientos became a suspect in the shooting, the state’s investigation failed to seriously consider and rule out plausible alternative suspects,” a news release from the attorney general said.
Minneapolis police do not support Barrientos-Quintana’s bid for freedom.
Chief Brian O’Hara in a statement said he’s worried Barrientos-Quintana “will be set free based only on a reinterpretation of old evidence rather than the existence of any new facts.”
“I am confident our investigators acted with the utmost integrity and professionalism and followed all the evidence available to them using investigative best practices,” O’Hara said.