For much of the world, 2020 was a troubling year, but few places saw as much uproar as Minnesota. The police killing of George Floyd set off protests in Minnesota and around the world, even as a pandemic and economic downturn hit minority communities with particular force.
But, somehow, the year ended with an event that provided hope, promise, and a path to healing. On December 15, 2020, the Minnesota Board of Pardons granted a commutation of sentence to Myon Burrell, who had been convicted of murder and attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison. The Burrell case, closely examined, is a Pandora’s box containing many of the most pressing issues in criminal justice: racial disparities, the troubling treatment of juveniles, mandatory minimums, the power (and, too often, lack) of advocacy, the potential for conviction and sentencing review units, clemency, and the need for multiple avenues of second-look sentencing. The purpose of this essay is to briefly explore each of these in the context of this one remarkable case, and to use this example to make a crucial point about criminal justice reform: To really make change, many fixes must be pursued at once, through a variety of methods. Just as it took many converging issues to create deep injustice in the Burrell case, there must be many converging paths to reform.