John Jefferson
Left: Myon Burrell is released from Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater, Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, in Bayport, Minn (AP Photo/John Minchillo). Right: Burrell booking photo (Hennepin County Jail).
A convicted murderer from Minnesota freed from a life sentence after a panel determined that a flawed investigation might have led to his wrongful conviction in the killing of an 11-year-old girl is going to prison again, this time for gun and drug possession.
Myon Burrell, 38, was sentenced to 60 months — or five years — in prison on Thursday after he was found guilty of unlawful possession of a firearm.
Hennepin County Assistant Chief Judge Mark Kappelhoff took the defendant to task.
“I can’t think of a single lawful reason why you’d be driving down with an unlawful firearm and drugs in your car. But yet you did,” he said.
Burrell told his supporters in the courtroom, “Y’all don’t stop fighting,” as he was taken into custody, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
His lawyers are appealing, arguing the traffic stop and search of his vehicle without a warrant was unconstitutional local NBC affiliate KARE reported.
Law&Crime first reported about the arrest in 2023 when Burrell was taken into custody during a traffic stop in Robbinsdale, in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. Police pulled his 2016 white Chevrolet Tahoe over for driving erratically, “going over the lane divider and the fog line” over the posted speed limit, police said. Inside the SUV, police found a gun, which Burrell was prohibited from carrying, and drugs, police said.
A criminal complaint obtained by Law&Crime outlines the Aug. 29 arrest in Hennepin County. At about 11 a.m., a Robbinsdale police officer was on routine patrol when he saw a white SUV drift over the road’s center line toward the other lane without signaling. As the vehicle passed, the officer could see in his rearview mirror that the vehicle was straddling the center line, and the officer made a U-turn to catch up with the SUV.
The officer saw the white SUV moving quicker than other traffic and exceeding the speed limit of 30 mph. When the vehicle’s tires crossed the center line again, the officer initiated a traffic stop.
The officer approached the driver’s side of the SUV, and the driver — Burrell — rolled down the window.
“Smoke appeared to billow out of the vehicle when the window was rolled down, and the officer detected a very strong odor of burnt marijuana and observed what appeared to be marijuana remnants on the center console of the SUV,” the complaint said.
The driver’s eyes were red and glossy, and his pupils were dilated, the document said. The officer asked Burrell to exit the vehicle for field sobriety testing.
“After observing some indicia of intoxication during one of the initial field sobriety tests, the officer advised he was going to look in the car for marijuana after seeing the smoke and the remnants on the console, and Defendant told him he could not look in his vehicle,” the complaint said.
When the officer told Burrell to have a seat in his squad car, Burrell began walking away. The officer took him by the arm to sit in his squad car, Burrell pulled away and began “to actively resist the officer,” “the document said.
“After more efforts to resist, defendant was eventually placed in handcuffs and secured in the officer’s squad car,” the complaint said.
Police found a Glock 17 9 mm handgun with an extended magazine in the center console and marijuana remnants. In a grey backpack in the back seat, officers found two bags of suspected marijuana, a baggie containing 21 clear capsules with a crystal-like powder, another baggie containing 16 suspected ecstasy pills, small plastic baggies and a digital scale.
At Thursday’s hearing, Burrell’s attorneys requested that their client remain free on bond pending the appeal, calling community leaders to testify on his behalf. But Kappelhoff was not swayed, noting that in addition to the conviction in the current case, Burrell has multiple pending cases related to other drug arrests that have not yet been adjudicated.
“That’s a third in a series and there’s a pattern,” Kappelhoff said, according to the Star Tribune, before ordering him to be transferred to prison immediately.
Burrell was first arrested when he was 16 for killing Tyesha Edwards. At around 3 p.m. on Nov. 22, 2002, Tyesha was with her younger sister doing homework and watching TV inside her home when a bullet struck her in the chest. She died at a hospital.
A yearlong investigation by The Associated Press and American Public Media Reports in 2020 uncovered serious flaws in the investigation. The reporting led to a review of his case and the commutation of his sentence to 20 years.
He served 18 years and was released on Dec. 15, 2020.
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