What Is Minnesota's Conviction Review Unit?

What the CRU Actually Does

The CRU exists to catch the cases the ordinary process got wrong. Appeals and most post-conviction motions are built around legal errors — whether the trial was run correctly. The CRU asks a different, harder question: regardless of whether the trial followed the rules, is there strong reason to believe this person didn't do it?

According to the Attorney General's Office, the unit does three things: it identifies wrongful convictions, it works to remedy them, and it develops policy proposals aimed at the causes that produce wrongful convictions in the first place. When it can, it also tries to identify who actually committed the crime. It accepts a case for review only when there's a strong indication of actual innocence — not simply that the case was close or the sentence was harsh.

It Has a Real Track Record

This isn't a symbolic office. Since it began accepting applications in 2021, the CRU's investigations have produced concrete results in serious cases:

• In 2023, its review led to Thomas Rhodes being released after nearly 25 years in prison — the first person freed as a result of a CRU investigation.
• In 2024, it recommended vacating Brian Pippitt's 2001 conviction, the first case in which the unit recommended a full exoneration.
• Also in 2024, the murder conviction of Edgar Barrientos-Quintana was vacated and the charges dismissed after the CRU's investigation uncovered evidence of innocence, including exculpatory evidence the jury never heard.

In 2025, an external review by the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice described Minnesota's CRU as a model for how this kind of statewide work should be done. For a unit only a few years old, that's a meaningful outside endorsement.

Who Can Apply

The CRU is currently accepting applications from incarcerated people who claim they were wrongly convicted of a crime they did not commit. A few practical points matter:

• The applicant must sign the application themselves. Family and friends can help, but the person who was convicted has to review and sign it.
• The application is available in multiple languages — English, Spanish, Hmong, Mandarin, and Somali — and is distributed through Minnesota Department of Corrections facilities.
• Don't send extra materials unless asked. The unit specifically asks applicants not to send additional documents unless requested, because it can't store or guarantee the return of them.

Applications and information can be requested from the Attorney General's Office directly by email, phone, or mail. The office lists a dedicated CRU contact for exactly this purpose.

How the CRU Differs From an Appeal or Post-Conviction Petition

This is the part that causes the most confusion, so it's worth being clear. If you're weighing your options after a conviction, these are different tracks:

• A direct appeal challenges legal errors in the trial and has strict, early deadlines. See our guide on post-conviction and related claims for how some of these arguments work.
• A post-conviction petition can raise issues outside the trial record, including some newly discovered evidence, but is still a court process governed by legal standards.
• The CRU is not a court and not a substitute for either. It's an investigative unit that, if it finds strong evidence of innocence, can recommend relief — and its recommendation can then move through the courts, as it did in the cases above.

In practice, the CRU is aimed at a specific, narrow situation: a credible claim of actual innocence, usually where ordinary appeals have run their course. It is not a path for reducing a sentence, revisiting a plea you regret, or arguing the case was unfair. Those are different questions with different tools.

Where This Fits If You're Facing a Case Now

The CRU is a post-conviction resource — it's about cases that are already over. If you or someone you love is currently charged, the most important work happens long before any of this: protecting your rights during the investigation, scrutinizing the evidence, and building the defense at the trial stage, when the outcome is still open. Understanding what a defense lawyer does and how the presumption of innocence works matters far more at that point than any after-the-fact review. The existence of the CRU is a reminder of why getting the case right the first time is everything.

Key Terms

• Conviction Review Unit (CRU): A unit within the Minnesota Attorney General's Office that investigates credible claims of actual innocence.
• Actual innocence: A claim that the convicted person did not commit the crime — distinct from a claim that the trial had legal errors.
• Exoneration: The formal clearing of a person of the crime for which they were convicted.
• Post-conviction relief: A court process for challenging a conviction or sentence after the direct appeal, on grounds allowed by law.
• Vacate: A court order setting aside a conviction or sentence.