![]() The Innocence Project previously had another client freed due to McGee’s testimony being called into question, said Hayley Drozdowski-Poxleitner, director of communications and community outreach. Rhodes maintained,” the summary continued. Another forensic pathologist found Jane Rhodes’ death “was not inconsistent with an accidental fall, as Mr. The Conviction Review Unit agreed to review Rhodes’ conviction. Based on McGee’s testimony and autopsy report, prosecutors argued at the time that Rhodes “intentionally grabbed his wife by the neck, pushed her overboard, and ran her over multiple times,” according to Friday’s summary by Ellison’s office. Rhodes’ wife, Jane Rhodes, fell overboard and drowned during a nighttime boat ride with Thomas Rhodes on Green Lake in Spicer, Minnesota. It’s intended to review cases for people who claim innocence.įriday’s announcement about Thomas Rhodes’ 1998 murder conviction being vacated marked the first time someone was freed from incarceration because of an investigation and case review by the Conviction Review Unit. Department of Justice had awarded the organization and the AG’s office a $300,000 grant to fund the creation of a Conviction Review Unit. ![]() In 2020, Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Great North Innocence Project announced that the U.S. ![]() If even more analysis is needed for any of the cases, Choi said they’ll seek to have pathologists from outside of Minnesota do the work. When that work is done, the organization will provide a report to Choi’s office. The Prosecutors’ Center for Excellence is reviewing trial transcripts of testimony and medical examiner’s files in the next phase of review. They’re more complicated situations than a shooting, for example. The cases selected for a closer look - about 70 - are ones in which the cause of death was “a significant issue,” Choi said. The center examined Ramsey County homicide cases in which McGee was listed as the witness, which meant he had done the autopsy, Choi said. The first phase of the review by the center, a national organization that provides consulting and research services to prosecutors, happened from last April to November. It is up to the jury/judge to decide which opinion(s) have the most bearing.”Īs a result of Erickson’s ruling, Choi’s office entered into a contract with Prosecutors’ Center for Excellence to review McGee’s work in cases prosecuted by the Ramsey County attorney’s office. McGee provided his opinion in the same fashion as the other pathologists. Kelly Mills, Ramsey County’s current chief medical examiner, said in a Wednesday statement that “all pathologists in the (Rodriguez) case gave opinions aside from the actual autopsy findings. … That’s why we’re undertaking this review, so that the public has full faith and confidence that our convictions have integrity and are faithful to the truth.”ĭr. “I think hindsight is one of the most important tools of justice. “This is what I think every prosecutor should be doing when anything comes into question about … the integrity of any past convictions,” he said. The AG’s office said McGee’s testimony was the “linchpin” of the case and cited “increasing scrutiny” of his work.īecause McGee’s work involved homicides, the stakes are high, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said Wednesday. 13, when the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office announced that it agreed to vacate a man’s 1998 conviction for first- and second-degree murder in Kandiyohi County. The latest blow to McGee’s work came Friday, Jan. He also carried out autopsies for a number of counties in Minnesota. ![]() Michael McGee was Ramsey County’s chief medical examiner from 1985 to 2019 and continued working as a forensic pathologist for the county through 2021. PAUL - The Ramsey County attorney has launched an outside review of the work of the county’s former, longtime medical examiner after a federal appeals court judge wrote that the doctor’s testimony was “unreliable, misleading and inaccurate” in the murder trial of the man convicted of killing Dru Sjodin in 2003.ĭr. ![]()
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