Minnesota suspends conviction review unit after Trump funding cut

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison suspended the state’s Conviction Review Unit after the Trump administration refused to renew the federal grant that had funded the program. Ellison said, “Following the Trump Administration’s refusal to renew federal grant funding that supported the program, my Office is suspending our Conviction Review Unit.”

The unit was created in 2020 and began accepting applications in August 2021. Its mission was to identify, remedy and prevent wrongful convictions, while also developing policy proposals aimed at the most common causes of those errors. It launched with a two-year, $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, passed through the Great North Innocence Project, and was renewed in October 2022 for two more years at $500,000. The grant covered one attorney for two years, while the attorney general’s office subsidized support staff.

Recent budget constraints and staffing reductions made it impossible to absorb the unit’s cost without cutting into other core duties. The unit’s public work led to the release of three people from prison: Thomas Rhodes, whose 1998 murder conviction was vacated in January 2023 after flaws were found in the medical evidence; Edgar Barrientos-Quintana, whose conviction was vacated and charges dismissed in 2024 after the unit documented evidence of innocence; and Brian Pippitt, whose case led to a 2024 recommendation and later a commutation of his life sentence by the Minnesota Board of Pardons.

The unit also issued a November 2025 report on Philip Randall Vance, though it did not recommend vacating his conviction. The February 2025 external audit praised the unit as a model for statewide conviction integrity work and said it had received 1,151 applications for review and completed five investigations. Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and former Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman submitted letters of support and pledged to cooperate with the effort.