Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s appeal for a new trial has been rejected by the Minnesota Court of Appeals. This means that he will continue to serve his 22-and-a-half-year sentence for the killing of George Floyd. The decision was made in response to a claim made by Chauvin in January that excessive publicity and security, as well as the revelation that a juror attended a civil rights march, deprived him of a fair trial.
Despite Chauvin’s attorney arguing that the trial judge should have moved the case out of Minneapolis due to excessive pretrial publicity and security measures, a three-judge panel sided with prosecutors, who said that Chauvin received a fair trial and sentence. The ruling comes nearly three years after George Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020. Chauvin had knelt on his victim’s neck for more than nine minutes.
Appeals Judge Peter Reyes wrote for the panel-
“Police officers undoubtedly have a challenging, difficult, and sometimes dangerous job. However, no one is above the law. When they commit a crime, they must be held accountable just as those individuals that they lawfully apprehend. The law only permits police officers to use reasonable force when effecting a lawful arrest. Chauvin crossed that line here when he used unreasonable force on Floyd.”
Chauvin’s appeal also focused on a juror who participated in a civil rights event commemorating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, a few months after Floyd’s death. Only after the trial did the juror reveal that he had been there. However, the appeals court ruling dictates that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in deciding those issues.
Chauvin’s sentence was handed down last year as 252 months in prison. However, Judge Paul Magnuson subtracted seven months as time already served. Chauvin also pleaded guilty in December 2021 as part of a plea deal. He admitted that he violated Floyd’s civil rights by kneeling on the man’s neck and back. Other police officers present at the time, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao were also handed federal sentences.
cc: Washington Post
