https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2020-01-31/jury-foreman-regrets-convicting-teen-in-girls-2002-death
McLean said he and other jurors did the best they could with the evidence presented and were unaware of information turned up in the AP review of the case -- in part because his co-defendants were not allowed to take the stand. Both have since said Burrell was not even on the scene. One of them, Ike Tyson, admits to being the shooter.
“Now there are statements from Ike Tyson saying he did the shooting. We didn’t have that then,” McLean said. [snip]
The AP examined thousands of pages of court documents and archival video that showed police investigators offered cash to potential witnesses in exchange for information. In addition, they relied on the testimony of jail house snitches who received reduced sentences in exchange, and later recanted their testimony.
At the end of the interview, McLean asked an AP reporter to deliver a message to Burrell: “Tell him that I’m sorry,” he said. “I tried to do my best. I kind of think in retrospect I failed.”
The article covers a lot more and is well worth reading in full.
Amy Klobuchar Helped Jail a Teenager for Life. Was He Innocent?
https://www.thecut.com/2020/01/klobuchar-helped-jail-a-teenager-for-life-was-he-innocent.html
After reviewing police records, court transcripts, and interrogation tapes, in addition to interviewing dozens of people connected to the case, the AP found that the case against Burrell was extremely thin. It relied substantially on the testimony of one of Burrell’s teen rivals, who gave conflicting accounts of the shooter’s identity, which, per the report, was “largely obscured behind a wall 120 feet away.” There were no eyewitnesses, and a stunning lack of physical evidence — no gun, fingerprints, or DNA — and Burrell, who was 16 at the time of the 2002 shooting, claims a convenience-store surveillance tape that would have cleared him of all wrongdoing never surfaced.
Additionally, Burrell’s co-defendants have confessed to their involvement in Edwards’s death, and they all say Burrell wasn’t there. Burrell had an alibi that day, but the police reportedly didn’t follow up on it. One of Burrell’s co-defendants, Ike Tyson, insists that he was the one who pulled the trigger; he says he fired off the rounds with the intention of scaring a member of a rival gang, and that it wasn’t until later that evening he learned of Edwards’s death. “I already shot an innocent girl,” Tyson told the AP. “Now an innocent guy — at the time he was a kid — is locked up for something he didn’t do. So it’s like I’m carrying two burdens.”
The above article is a bit of a hit piece, but it adds a more detail to the picture.
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