A Minnesota county prosecutor announced Tuesday that six separate murder convictions held up as fair and just, even though they involved a former medical examiner whose professional work came under serious scrutiny after a federal judge called his courtroom testimony “unreliable, misleading and inaccurate.”
The announcement wraps up most of a lengthy review into cases handled by Dr. Michael McGee, who formerly served as a Ramsey County medical examiner. Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said the findings cover seven murder convictions in total. In one of those seven cases — involving a more recent plea agreement — the results are still being shared with the defense team and the legal proceedings are ongoing.
To conduct the review, the county brought in three outside medical experts to examine McGee’s reports and courtroom testimony. Choi said those experts mostly flagged troubling word choices in McGee’s work rather than finding fundamental problems with his actual conclusions.
In a handful of cases, the criticisms of McGee’s work were more significant. Even so, Choi said the review “ultimately determined that while the criticisms were valid, they did not go to the aspects of the case that were key to determining the defendant’s guilt.”
Choi concluded that the convictions in six cases were “fair and just” and that there was no legal basis to overturn or change them. Attempts to reach McGee by phone were not returned.
The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office launched its review of McGee’s work — spanning more than 30 years — after a federal judge overturned a death sentence in connection with the 2003 killing of Dru Sjodin, a college student from North Dakota.
District Judge Ralph Erickson determined that McGee appeared to be “guessing” while on the witness stand during the murder trial of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., and that McGee offered opinions in court that were never included in his autopsy reports. Rodriguez was later resentenced to life in prison.
The review was carried out with assistance from attorneys at the nonprofit Prosecutors’ Center for Excellence, and the office also consulted with the Great North Innocence Project. The entire process cost Ramsey County $380,000.
The three outside medical experts — who Choi said had no ties to Minnesota or any of the cases — described McGee’s language as sometimes going too far or being misleading. As one example, McGee at times attributed a victim’s injuries to assault, a term the experts said they would not use because it carries a legal meaning rather than a medical one.
Choi said the review pointed to opportunities for his office to better train prosecutors on how medical experts should function in a courtroom. He stressed that medical examiners should help guide a jury’s understanding without steering them toward legal conclusions. “They should not be advocates for one side or the other,” he said.
