Derek Chauvin speaks at his June 25, 2021 sentencing hearing in district court (via Law&Crime Network). George Floyd (Image via Attorney Ben Crump.)
The Minnesota Court of Appeals has rejected convicted murderer Derek Chauvin’s request for a new trial over the killing of George Floyd, who died after Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.
On May 25, 2020, bystanders watched in horror as Chauvin coldly kept his knee wedged into Floyd, who was pinned face-down on the street, as the man lost consciousness after saying several times that he couldn’t breathe. As some took cellphone video of the incident, they could be heard pleading with Chauvin to stop.
Floyd’s death at the hands of police sparked months of protests worldwide demanding accountability for police brutality against Black people. Chauvin was convicted of murder in state court in April 2021. Chauvin appealed on several grounds, among them his longstanding argument that the trial should have been moved out of Minneapolis due to publicity surrounding the case. He also argued that a juror’s comments during jury selection about the Minneapolis Police Department are proof that the jury was prejudiced against him.
Three judges on the Minnesota Court of Appeals disagreed and upheld Chauvin’s conviction.
In a ruling issued Monday, Presiding Judge Peter Reyes as well as judges Elise Larson and Roger Klaphake found that Chauvin had failed to show that the jury was prejudiced against him as a result of pretrial publicity.
“Police officers undoubtedly have a challenging, difficult, and sometimes dangerous job,” Reyes wrote in the unanimous opinion. “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.”
The judges found that trial Judge Peter Cahill’s efforts to mitigate any potential prejudice — including an extensive juror questioning process, sequestering jurors during jury selection, and ordering jurors not to read anything about the case or do any investigation or research — were sufficient.
The judges also held that statements during voir dire from a juror that, in his opinion, Minneapolis Police Department officers are more likely to use force against Black people and that “Blacks and other minorities do not receive equal treatment as Whites in the criminal justice system” did not mean the jury was prejudiced against Chauvin — not least of all because, as the judges noted, Chauvin’s lawyers chose not to dismiss the juror before trial.
“Chauvin was given 18 peremptory strikes during the jury selection and had three remaining, which he could have used to prevent juror 52 from serving,” the judges noted, referring to the opportunities litigants have to dismiss jurors without showing cause. “He did not do so.”
Similarly, the judges determined that post-trial statements made by an alternate juror indicating concern for her safety in the event of an acquittal were not sufficient grounds to reverse.
The judges also found that in sentencing Chauvin to 270 months in prison, Cahill did not err in departing upward from the presumptive sentencing guideline range of 128 to 180 months.
“[T]reating the victim with particular cruelty is a sufficient basis for an upward sentencing departure by itself,” the opinion said in agreeing with Cahill’s finding that aggravating factors warranted the 22 1/2 year sentence. “Moreover, Chauvin’s failure to render aid to Floyd, in conjunction with particular cruelty, can comprise multiple grounds to depart upward.”
Chauvin has also pleaded guilty to two federal charges for violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison, which was ordered to run concurrently with his state sentence.
As Law&Crime reported last week, the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay nearly $9 million to settle two cases by residents who were also brutalized by Chauvin: body camera video shows the disgraced officer, who is white, kneeling on the necks of John Pope and Zoya Code, both of whom are Black, during separate 2017 arrests.
Read the Minnesota Court of Appeals opinion here.
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