A court has overturned a Minneapolis man’s murder conviction following a shooting during a vigil

An appeals court has overturned the 2021 conviction of a Minneapolis man who was found guilty of second-degree murder.

Deandre Dontae Turner was convicted by jury in July 2023 on one count of second-degree murder in Hennepin County Superior Court.

According to the report, police responded to the report shooting just before 9 p.m. on June 30, 2021in front of the Elks Lodge at North Plymouth Avenue and Knox Avenue. The victim, later identified as 37-year-old AJ “Drew” McGinley, was found dead outside the club. An autopsy revealed that he had been shot five times.

Investigators learned that McGinley and dozens of others had gathered for a vigil for a recently deceased friend.

Surveillance footage obtained by police shows McGinley got into a brief fight with other men during the vigil. He fell to the ground, but got up, put his hands up and walked away. The video then shows a man approaching behind McGinley, then pointing a gun and shooting him several times at point-blank range, causing McGinley to fall and disperse the crowd, the complaint says.

The video then shows the shooter entering the passenger side of a silver vehicle and leaving the scene.

On November 18, 2024, an appeals court judge overturned the verdict due to errors in the evidence and prosecutorial misconduct.

Court records say the quality of the surveillance image was “extremely poor,” so the shooter could only be identified by the color of his clothing and did not show the shooter’s face.

A few weeks after the shooting, the witness spoke to police and did not mention Turner’s name during questioning, instead agreeing that Turner shot McGinley after a sergeant suggested it.

Court documents show that police also did not find the gun used to kill the victim or any DNA evidence linking a specific person to the shooting.

It was argued that Turner was entitled to a new trial because of improperly admitted evidence and numerous types of misconduct during closing and rebuttal arguments.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office has 30 days to appeal the appellate court’s decision or decide to retry the case.