Via ADL
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By Kaylee Pearlman
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – The murder conviction of former Police Officer Derek Chauvin was upheld at the Minnesota Court of Appeals Monday when the court “let his 22 ½ – year sentence remain in place,” according to c.
His attorney asked the court to throw out the ex-officer’s convictions,” arguing “pretrial publicity (and) legal and procedural errors deprived Chauvin of a fair trial,” said AP news, that added “the three-judge panel sided with prosecutors who said Chauvin got a fair and just sentence.”
Chauvin held his knee to George Floyd’s neck on May 25, 2020. His knee, according to AP news, “[pinned] the Black man’s neck to the ground for 9 ½ minutes.” On that day, “a bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of ‘I can’t breathe.’
“Floyd’s death touched off protests around the world, some of which turned violent, and forced a national reckoning with police brutality and racism,” AP news reported, noting Court of Appeals Judge Peter Reyes stated that “police officers undoubtedly have a challenging, difficult and sometimes dangerous job…”
Judge Reyes continued with “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.” Reyes concluded that “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.”
Attorney General Keith Ellison of Minnesota said he was “grateful we have a system where everyone, no matter how egregious their offense, is entitled to due process and fair treatment.” Ellison continued, saying that “the Court’s decision today shows once again no one is above the law—and no one is beneath it.”
Chauvin’s attorney, William Mohrman, according to AP news, said that “the trial judge should have moved the case out of Minneapolis because of extensive pretrial publicity and unprecedented security precautions due to fears of violence.
“The primary issue on this appeal is whether a criminal defendant can get a fair trial consistent with constitutional requirements in a courthouse. Surrounded by concrete block, barbed wire, two armored personnel carriers and a squad of National Guard troops, all of which…are there for one purpose: in the event that the jury acquits the defendant,” the attorney added.
Neal Katyal, an attorney for the state, argued, “[Chauvin] got one of the most transparent and thorough trials in our nation’s history.”
Judge Peter Cahill of Hennepin County sentenced Chauvin to,”22 ½ years after jurors found him guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter,” according to AP news, adding, “Chauvin later pleaded guilty to a separate federal civil rights charge and was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison.”
Katyal stated, “Judge Cahill managed this trial with enormous care, and even if Chauvin could identify some minor fault, any error is harmless…the evidence of Chauvin’s guilt was captured on video for the world to see.”
Morhman argued, said AP, “the publicity and the riots, the city’s $27 million settlement with Floyd’s family announced dating jury selection, the unrest over a police killing of a Black man in a Minneapolis suburb during jury selection, and the sealing off of the courthouse, were just some of the factors prejudicing Chauvin’s chance of a fair trial.”
Chauvin’s appeal also, added AP, “focused on one juror who participated in a civil rights event commemorating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March…a few months after Floyd’s death. [Only after] the trial did the juror reveal that he had been there.”
The Court of Appeals ruled, “Cahill did not abuse his discretion in deciding those issues,” according to AP news, and Defense Attorney Mike Brandt stated that he was “not surprised that the appeals court confirmed Chauvin’s conviction and found no errors that would have changed the outcome.”
Brandt continued, saying that “appellate courts give judges wide discretion and are loath to micromanage how they run trials,” concluding, “Cahill created a solid record to justify the decision he made in a high-pressure case where literally the eyes of the world were on him.”
The AP story noted that “the appeals court declined to address whether it was legally permissible to convict Chauvin of third-degree murder,” adding the defense argued, “a 2021 Minnesota Supreme Court decision in a different police killing case that clarified the definition of that crime meant the law no longer fit the facts of Floyd’s killing.”
But, said AP, the appeals court concluded that “the trial judge never formally adjudicated that conviction nor did he sentence Chauvin on that count.”
