Minnesota Board of Pardons commutes the sentence of Brian Pippitt

Ellison’s Conviction Review Unit recommended Pippitt’s 2001 conviction be vacated

September 24, 2025 (SAINT PAUL) — Today, the Minnesota Board of Pardons voted to commute the sentence of Brian Pippitt, who spent over two decades in prison following a conviction of first-degree murder in 2001. The Board, which Attorney General Keith Ellison serves on, voted to commute Pippitt’s sentence based on good behavior in prison and the length of time Pippitt served in prison compared to his codefendants. 

Today’s commutation follows a 2024 recommendation from the Conviction Review Unit (CRU) of the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office that Pippitt be exonerated based on the insurmountable reasonable doubt of Pippitt’s guilt.

The recommendation was based on the CRU’s extensive, independent investigation of the conviction. The CRU issued a 118-page report documenting its investigation and the rationale for its recommendation. The report contains 895 footnotes that cite to approximately 250 source documents and took core CRU staff more than 1,100 hours to complete. 

"I am glad Mr. Pippitt’s sentence was commuted today, and I am proud of the work my office’s Conviction Review Unit did to help get us to this point,” said Attorney General Ellison. “I created our Conviction Review Unit because, while no system of justice is perfect, we should always strive for perfection and when wrong is done, we must work to correct it. I will continue to do everything I can to help build a more perfect justice system that does right by all Minnesotans.”

Background on the Conviction Review Unit

In October 2020, Attorney General Ellison announced the creation of the Conviction Review Unit in the Attorney General’s Office. Minnesota’s CRU is one of only a handful in the country that operates on a statewide basis through an Attorney General’s Office.

In January 2023, the work of the CRU led to the vacating of Thomas Rhodes' first and second-degree murder convictions after serious errors were uncovered in the work of the medical examiner whose testimony helped convict Rhodes. In November 2024, Edgar Barrientos' murder conviction was vacated after the CRU published a report documenting compelling evidence of Barrientos' innocence. 

Minnesotans who claim they have been wrongly convicted of a crime may apply to the CRU to have their convictions reviewed, as Mr. Pippitt did. An application to the CRU is not a guarantee of review: the CRU screens all applications with an unbiased eye to determine whether there are plausible claims of a wrongful conviction. More information, including frequently asked questions and application forms in English, Hmong, Mandarin, Somali, and Spanish, are available on the Attorney General’s website.