Michael Hansen

In September 2011, Michael Hansen was exonerated for a crime he did not commit and released from prison after over six and a half years of wrongful incarceration. 

A Tragic Loss

On May 2, 2004, Michael Hansen went to bed on a futon mattress with his three-and-a-half-month old daughter, Avryonna, and Avryonna’s three-year-old sister. When he awoke the next morning, he found his infant daughter unresponsive. He called paramedics, who unsuccessfully attempted to resuscitate her. Avryonna had passed away in her sleep. 

During the baby’s autopsy, the local coroner discovered a complex skull fracture, and so he contacted law enforcement who determined a forensic pathologist should also examine the baby. 

Dr. Michael McGee, a medical examiner who is now under review by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and Minnesota Attorney General’s Office after a series of convictions were vacated based on his false or misleading testimony, examined Avryonna’s body. 

Dr. McGee determined that her cause of death was blunt force trauma, and ruled her death a homicide. Neither Dr. McGee, nor the coroner found bleeding in the brain or injury to the surface of the brain. 

The Trial
Mike was indicted by a grand jury on a second degree murder charge, and stood trial in front of a jury in 2006. During the trial, Avryonna’s mother testified that six days prior to Avryonna’s death, the baby had been sitting in a car seat atop a cart at the grocery store. The carseat, with Avryonna inside, fell to the pavement. However, her mother did not believe Avryonna was injured citing that the handle of the car seat was raised above the baby and would have caught the fall. 

Dr. McGee testified at trial that the cause of Avryonna’s death was closed-head trauma caused by blunt trauma. He said that she did not die as a result of a head injury that could have been sustained during the fall from the shopping cart, citing that the way the baby was secured in the car seat would have prevented the type of injury that he noted on Avryonna’s skill. He also said that had Avryonna sustained this type of injury, the baby would not have been able to act normally in the subsequent days. 

A former jail inmate who said he met Mike in jail also testified for the prosecution. He said that Mike disclosed to him while they were in jail together that Avryonna had been a colicky baby. His testified that based on Mike’s statements to him, he believed that Mike had hurt Avryonna. 

Dr. Jan Ophoven, a forensic pathologist with special training in pediatric forensic pathology testified for the defense, stating that Avryonna had suffered a skull fracture about a week before her death. She noted that she found evidence of substantial healing to the tissues of Avryonna’s skull, indicating the injury could not have happened the same night that Avryonna passed away. Dr. Ophoven testified that the baby died either of trauma to her brain as a result of a fall or injury that occurred about a week prior to the baby’s death, or due to an undetermined natural cause. 

The jury found Mike guilty and he was sentenced to 14.5 years in prison. 

Seeking Post-Conviction Relief 

Mike appealed his conviction, but on April 1, 2008, the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld his conviction. 

Shortly thereafter, Mike wrote to the then-Innocence Project of Minnesota (now Great North Innocence Project). 

IPMN filed a petition for a state writ of habeas corpus and presented new evidence of Mike’s innocence during an evidentiary hearing in the spring of 2011. At the hearing, five medical experts testified on Mike’s behalf agreeing that Avryonna likely died of positional asphyxia, not a skull fracture, and that the skull fracture would have had to occur at least three days prior to her death based on the level of healing. 

The medical experts testified that a skull fracture is only dangerous if there is subsequent brain bleeding or swelling, and neither was present in Avryonna’s case. Avryonna also displayed no symptoms of a brain injury in the days leading up to her death.

Exonerated

On July 21, 2011, Douglas County District Court Judge Peter M. Irvine vacated Mike’s conviction, saying that the new evidence presented at the evidentiary hearing “would probably result in a more favorable outcome at trial.” Judge Irvine also criticized Dr. McGee’s “not credible” testimony that Avryonna’s fall from the shopping cart could not have caused a skull fracture and for leaving the evidence that her skull fracture was healing out of his autopsy report. 

Mike with his daughter Starr at his tattoo shop, Kinship Collective in Northfield, Minnesota

On September 16, 2011, the Douglas County Attorney’s Office dismissed charges against Mike. 

Compensation

In 2014, Minnesota passed a new law allowing for wrongfully convicted people to make claims for state compensation to the legislature. Mike testified at the legislature in support of this bill. 

In 2016, Mike was awarded nearly $1 million dollars under the compensation statute. 

Life Now

Since his exoneration, Mike has opened his own tattoo studio, Kinship Collective, and works as a successful business owner and tattoo artist. His daughter, Starr, has followed in his footsteps and apprentices at his shop. 

Mike’s story is featured on the National Registry of Exonerations.

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