Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted Tuesday on all charges of the death of George Floyd, whose murder sparked protests around the world and a reckoning of his career in the United States. , third-degree murder and second-degree homicide.
Judge Peter Cahill read the verdict at the strong government center in Hennepin County, downtown Minneapolis, where the trial began last month. A joy was felt from the crowd of peaceful protesters who had gathered outside.
Chauvin showed little reaction after the verdict was announced. Judge Cahill announced that his bail had been revoked and Chauvin was handcuffed.
Cahill said the sentencing will take place in about eight weeks.
The jury, made up of six white people, four black people and two multiracial people, heard 13 days of sometimes emotional testimonies. The jury was kidnapped during the deliberations, but was not kidnapped during the previous part of the trial.
In his final argument, prosecutor Steve Schleicher urged jurors to focus on the video showing Chauvin pressing his knee to Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes.
“Create your eyes,” Schleicher said. “An irrational force, which set him on the ground, is what killed him. It was a homicide.”
Schleicher said Chauvin showed “indifference” to Floyd’s requests for help and continued to hold the man back even after he did not respond, ignoring spectators who invited him to relax.
“This case is exactly what you thought when you first saw it, when you first saw the video,” he said. “It’s exactly that. It’s exactly what you saw with your own eyes. It’s exactly what you knew. It’s exactly what you felt in your gut. It’s what you know in your heart now. That wasn’t policing, it was murder.” .
In his final argument, defense attorney Eric Nelson said the state has not proved his case beyond a reasonable doubt and has not been able to definitively prove how Floyd died.
He said that while the state called on a number of experts to state that positional suffocation was the cause of Floyd’s death, “it flies in the face of reason and common sense” to suggest that drugs and Floyd’s heart disease played no role, Nelson said.
Nelson has argued that a combination of Floyd’s underlying heart disease, the adrenaline and fentanyl, and methamphetamine he had ingested before arrest amounted to a fatal combination. He described the case as “tragic”, but said it was an example of “agents doing their job in a very stressful situation”.
In Minnesota, second-degree murder carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison. Third-degree murder is punishable by up to 25 years in prison. Second-degree homicide is punishable by up to ten years in prison.
But sentencing guidelines recommend less time for offenders with no criminal record.
In this case, the range of sentences suggested for second-degree manslaughter and third-degree murder is the same: from just over 10 1/2 years to 15 years in prison. The recommended average sentence is 12 and a half years: the same sentence delivered in 2019 to Mohamed Noor, a former Minneapolis police officer convicted of third-degree murder for firing a shot from inside his squadron car and killing a woman he had called 911
Someone convicted of second-degree homicide with no criminal record would probably spend about four years in prison.
In the Chauvin case, prosecutors have introduced a number of “aggravating factors” that could add additional time to Chauvin’s conviction. They include committing a crime in front of a child – the youngest passenger who witnessed Floyd’s death was 9 years old – and using police authority to commit a crime.
The other three agents involved are accused of aiding and abetting, and are expected to be tried together in August.