Over the past several years, the movement towards post-conviction review and wrongful conviction reform has become more widespread. Here in Minnesota, the Attorney General Keith Ellison set up a Conviction Review Unit (CRU) that became effective in June 2021. The process started with a federal grant awarded to review cases where there are plausible allegations of actual innocence or manifest injustice. Over the next year, a CRU advisory board was created, and the board started working on the implementation of these goals. As an independent unit, the CRU is made up of teams of attorneys and members with diverse backgrounds
The CRU aims to consider all applications for review, despite guilty pleas or completed sentences. The CRU reviews cases where there are claims of not only wrongful convictions and actual innocence, but also claims from those who feel they were unjustly sentenced.
The CRU will consider reasonable probability of innocence, cases where evidence is no longer deemed credible or was tainted by bias towards race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc., and cases where there was misconduct or corruption during the fact-finding process, amongst many other considerations. A detailed look at the goals for the CRU can be found at https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/CRU/default.asp.
After the review process is complete, the CRU may make recommendations to the Attorney General on the appropriate resolution and remedy, such as relief from a conviction or a change in sentence.
There is an application process that is available in several languages at all Minnesota Department of Corrections facilities. You can also request an application from the Attorney General’s Office.
As always, there are many nuances with the fact-finding process and convictions. If you have questions regarding a conviction or the CRU process, reach out to your former defense attorney, including those of us at Brandt Kettwick Defense.