- Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, has appealed his conviction for the murder of George Floyd, claiming that the choice to keep the case in Minneapolis prevented him from receiving a fair trial.
Chauvin was found guilty of Floyd’s murder in May 2020 in April 2021. Despite Floyd’s protests that he was having trouble breathing during the arrest, the former Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck.
The cop has been imprisoned in Arizona since June 2021, when he received a sentence of 22 and a half years.
Chauvin filed a complaint with the Minnesota Supreme Court on May 17 alleging that his trial was unfair.
A month after he was unsuccessful in his appeal before the Minnesota Court of Appeals, he filed the petition.
William Mohrman, his attorney, maintained that the conviction was incorrect for a number of reasons, such as the extensive pre-trial publicity and the overwhelming sympathy for Floyd in the Minneapolis community.
However, the three-judge panel last month agreed with the prosecution that Chauvin had a fair trial and earned a suitable punishment.
His most recent appeal makes some of the same points again.
We have high hopes that the Minnesota Supreme Court will accept the case for consideration, said Mohrman.
If Chauvin’s appeal is accepted, the Minnesota Supreme Court will request thorough briefs from all parties and schedule an oral argument date. The Court of Appeals decision could also be upheld if it decides not to hear the case.
Developing and clarifying the due process standards for venue transfers where there is unprecedented pre-trial publicity that is pervasive and accompanied by community violence, according to Morhman, is a key issue raised by the case before the state Supreme Court, he stated in the petition.
Additionally, he stated that it raises concerns about the laws governing juror misbehavior.
A few months after Floyd’s passing, one juror took part in a civil rights celebration honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, D.C.
The juror didn’t admit to being there until after the trial.
In order to determine whether the juror’s nondisclosure constituted misconduct, the Court of Appeals declined to remand the matter to the trial judge for further consideration.
In addition to his state term, Chauvin is also serving a 21-year sentence in federal prison in Arizona after entering a guilty plea to a different federal civil rights violation.
