Thomas Rhodes released from prison
ST. PAUL, Minn. (KFGO) – A man who spent nearly 25 years in prison for murder is the first person in Minnesota to have his conviction reversed after an investigation by the state’s Conviction Review Unit – a division of the State’s Attorney General’s Office.
Thomas Rhodes was convicted in 1998 after a jury found him guilty of 1st- and 2nd-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of his wife Jane who fell overboard and ultimately drowned during a nighttime boat ride on Green Lake in Spicer, Minnesota. Rhodes said Jane fell by accident.
The conviction was based largely on the testimony of former Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Michael McGee.
McGee’s credibility has been called into question over the past two decades, including in the trial of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.
Rodriguez was convicted of the 2003 kidnapping and murder of University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin, 22. Sjodin was kidnapped from Columbia Mall in Grand Forks. Rodriguez was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to death, but the judge in the case has ruled he should be resentenced.
A federal judge recently noted that Dr. McGee “has a well-documented history of providing false or inaccurate testimony in court,” and that his testimony in the case (against Rodriguez) was “so unmoored from a scientific basis that it should not have been received at all.”
After that judge’s opinion was released, the Conviction Review Unit decided to look at the Rhodes case.
In the Rhodes’ case, McGee testified that the death could not have been accidental and, based on that, the State argued Thomas grabbed Jane by the neck, pushed her overboard, and drove over her multiple times.
An independent pathologist and former president of the National Association of Medical Examiners was asked to give an opinion on the Rhodes case and found that Jane Rhodes could have fallen by accident. The Conviction Review Unit, based on the independent review, found McGee’s testimony to be flawed and reversed the 1st- and 2nd-degree convictions, but not manslaughter since evidence shows that Rhodes’ negligence led to Jane’s death.
The Conviction Review Unit said Rhodes drove a small, unstable boat, late at night, at top speed and knew Jane could not swim. Jane was not wearing a life jacket, there were no life jackets within reach. There were also no flashlights on the boat, and no way to quickly call for help.
The nearly 25 years that Rhodes spent at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Moose Lake is nearly double the maximum sentence for his manslaughter conviction.
Rhodes was released on Friday.
Comments