A very cold case from Amy Klobuchar’s history as the Hennepin County attorney in Minnesota has risen up like a ghost from the past and resulted in calls for her to end her presidential campaign. And somewhat ironically, it’s a case that the candidate has bragged about on the campaign trail and even during debates. Back in 2002, a young girl named Tyesha Edwards was murdered and Klobuchar worked on the case, resulting in the conviction of then 16-year-old Myon Burrell, who eventually received a life sentence. Burrell insisted he wasn’t involved and has stuck to his story to this day.
Now it looks like that case may have been wrongly decided and Burrell’s story is back in the local news. Supposedly, police based their case on information from jailhouse informants, but they have since recanted their stories. A different man who is currently in prison later confessed to killing young Tyesha Edwards. And the prosecution brought the case without ever finding the murder weapon or any fingerprint or DNA evidence. Yesterday, a group of activists and people connected to the case held a press conference calling on Klobuchar to end her presidential bid and return home to work on social justice issues. (CBS Minnesota)
Members of Black Lives Matter Twin Cities, Minneapolis NAACP, Communities United Against Police Brutality and other groups held a news conference Wednesday morning, calling for Klobuchar to suspend her campaign and focus on social justice in the Twin Cities. They say because Klobuchar was the first prosecutor and because she has brought it up on the campaign trail, she should step aside.
“We are here today to call on Amy Klobuchar to immediately end her campaign for president,” Nekima Levy Armstrong said.
Burrell, now in his thirties, is still behind bars and maintains his innocence. He’s rejected all plea deals. His father, Michael Toussaint, also blames Klobuchar.
Given that we’re only days away from the Iowa Caucuses and the fact that Klobuchar has recently been showing some signs of Klomentum in the polls, let’s just say that I’m a little suspicious of the timing of this press conference. This case has been knocking around for 18 years and it appears that questions about the conviction started pretty much on day one. This could have been brought forward at any time starting nearly ten years ago.
Also worth noting is the fact that while Klobuchar was the county attorney at the time of the murder, Burrell’s first conviction was thrown out. He was put back on trial in 2008, but by then, Klobuchar had already gone to the Senate and it was her replacement in the county attorney’s office who secured the conviction.
That’s not to say that Amy Klobuchar wasn’t involved in the case at all. She was. But she obviously wasn’t the only person working on it and she was working with the information that was available at the time. The witnesses recanting their stories and the other prisoner claiming he was the real killer all took place after she was off the case.
In light of those facts, combined with the rather conspicuous timing of this announcement mentioned above, I find myself wondering who was really behind making sure this story came out less than a week before the Iowa caucuses. And if Klobuchar meekly drops out of the race because of this to “go home and work on social justice issues” then she probably doesn’t have what it takes to last through the rigors of the campaign and, if elected, the presidency.
