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Derek Chauvin To Be Sentenced On Friday For The Murder Of George Floyd

Derek Chauvin To Be Sentenced On Friday For The Murder Of George Floyd

Minneapolis, Minnesota, US — Thirteen months to the day after George Floyd was murdered on the streets of south Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, the ex-Minneapolis police officer who put his knee to Floyd’s neck for nine and a half minutes, will be sentenced for the second-degree murder conviction he received on April 20.

While Chauvin was found guilty on all three charges — second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter — Minnesota law stipulates that he will only be given a sentence for the severest of the three because they all arise out of the same behavior.

Minnesota has statewide sentencing guidelines that determine what are called “presumptive sentences” — essentially recommended sentences for felony offenses. Presumptive sentences offer guidelines for two decisions, whether to send someone to prison and for how long. These guidelines are arrived at by pairing a felony conviction with an individual’s criminal history, Brad Colbert, a law professor at St Paul’s Hamline University who practices as a part-time public defender with the Minnesota Public Defender’s Office, told Al Jazeera.

In Chauvin’s case, because he has no criminal history of convictions, his presumptive sentence is a prison term between more than 10 and a half years and 15 years.

However, four aggravated sentencing factors have been found in this case — that Chauvin treated Floyd with particular cruelty, abused his position of power as a police officer, killed him with the active participation of three or more other people, and did so in front of minors.

“The slow death of George Floyd occurring over approximately six minutes of his positional asphyxia was particularly cruel in that Mr. Floyd was begging for his life and terrified by the knowledge that he was likely to die,” Cahill wrote of the cruelty factor in his ruling. “The defendant objectively remained indifferent to Mr. Floyd’s pleas.”

While Judge Peter Cahill is technically allowed to depart from the sentencing guidelines in either direction, he has to justify going above or below the recommended sentence if he does so. The aggravating factors largely remove Cahill’s need to justify a longer sentence. The maximum possible sentence for second-degree murder in Minnesota is 40 years, but because of Chauvin’s clean criminal history, “we have some case law in Minnesota that indicates that [Cahill] is safe going up to a double departure without too much fear of it being reversed”, Colbert said.

The defense and the prosecution have submitted memos on what they believe the sentence should be. On June 2, the defense asked Cahill to sentence Chauvin to probation and limit his sentence to time served. The same day, the prosecution, spearheaded by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, asked for the opposite — a 30-year prison sentence.

“It’s important for [Chauvin] to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law given the heinous nature of the crime as well as the fact that it happened in front of children and traumatized the entire community,” local activist and community leader Nekima Levy Armstrong told Al Jazeera.
“I think about all of the African American men who are in prison for 25 [years] to life for nonviolent drug offenses and I compare that to what Derek Chauvin did. It shows that we have two systems of justice in this country. Well, three — one for white people, one for people of color, and one for police officers.”

“I’m sure that conversations are happening right now,” Moriarty said. “Chauvin certainly has some incentive to try to negotiate so that he gets similar time federally to what he gets from Cahill, but also that it would be concurrent and that he could do his time in federal prison. Because the federal prison budget is much better than the state, people would rather be in federal prison.”

Moriarty points out that, unlike on the state level, a federal plea can include the condition that Chauvin does not appeal the decision as a way to prevent putting witnesses and the community through another legal process.

Regardless of the outcome, Levy Armstrong expects that people will be out in the streets, but that the sentiment will vary. “I think that our community will be deeply disappointed and outraged if Chauvin receives a lighter sentence. I think people will take to the streets,” she said.

“I also think that if the judge sentences Chauvin appropriately — meaning on the higher end of the maximum sentence — that people will take to the streets, but with the feeling of relief that there was some accountability.

“I’ve been looking for something on what Floyd’s family is asking for, but I haven’t been able to find anything on Crump’s website, etc, etc. Just pointing out what that’s missing.”

Source: Aljazeera

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