Myon Burrell arrested on probable cause of narcotics violation

Myon Burrell, who was sentenced to life in prison as a teenager and released 18 years later after reporting revealed flaws in the murder case that sent him there, was arrested Thursday in Hennepin County on probable cause of a controlled substance/narcotics violation, according to jail records.

Details on what led to the arrest were not yet available Thursday night, and Burrell had not been charged.

Burrell, now 38, was just 16 when he was arrested in connection with the 2002 fatal shooting of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards in Minneapolis. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

He spent nearly two decades there before reporting by the Associated Press revealed flaws in the police investigation and prosecutors’ case against him. In 2020, Burrell’s sentence was commuted to 20 years and he was released from prison to spend the remaining two years on supervised release.

Last year, Burrell was arrested and charged with fifth-degree drug possession and illegal weapon possession after a traffic stop in Robbinsdale. A Hennepin County judge ruled last week that the stop and search by police of a vehicle Burrell was driving was valid.

Burrell’s attorneys had argued there was no probable cause to stop Burrell or search his vehicle, “based on nothing more than an imaginary cloud of smoke that allegedly came from inside the vehicle.” They cited a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling that the smell of marijuana alone does not justify a search.

Judge Peter Cahill wrote in an order that the search was valid, citing moving violations visible in squad car footage and “green leafy debris in plain view” of a police officer as valid reasons to search the vehicle because of a potential DWI.