US ex-police officer Derek Chauvin made headlines when his video was recorded of him killing George Floyd by pressing his knee to the detained African-American man’s neck. causing widespread anger among the public nationwide.
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin had his conviction and sentence for the 2020 murder of George Floyd debunked on Wednesday on the grounds that his high-profile trial is tainted by adverse publicity.
Chauvin’s recorded video of killing George Floyd by pressing his knee to the detained African-American man’s neck infuriated nationwide protests and uprisings over the mistreatment of blacks by police.
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill.
Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face-down in a street. Two other police officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane assisted Chauvin in restraining Floyd. Lane had also pointed a gun at Floyd’s head prior to Floyd being put in handcuffs. A fourth police officer, Tou Thao, prevented bystanders from intervening.
Prior to being placed on the ground, Floyd had exhibited signs of anxiety, complaining about having claustrophobia and being unable to breathe. After being restrained, he became more distressed, still complaining of breathing difficulties, of the knee on his neck, and of fear of imminent death.
After several minutes, Floyd stopped speaking. For the last few minutes, he lay motionless, and Officer Kueng found no pulse when urged to check. Despite this, Chauvin ignored pleas from bystanders to lift his knee from Floyd’s neck.
Chauvin, a white man, was convicted in a Minnesota state trial for murder, and sentenced in June last year to 22 and a half years in prison. He is appealing the case as an “unfair trial.”
He has also pleaded guilty to federal charges of civil rights violations and received 20 years in prison in July 2022- a sentence that won’t have any effect on the by-appeals of the murder charge.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals will hear Chauvin’s appeal of the murder conviction and opening arguments on Wednesday.
Chauvin and the other three officers were arrested after a bystander recorded him holding Floyd to the ground and pressing his knee to his neck after the 46-year-old was detained for allegedly buying cigarettes with counterfeit banknotes.
After 9 minutes after the incident, Floyd lost consciousness and was later pronounced dead.
Jury rejects Chauvin’s appeals, as inviting immense publicity
The video of the incident, enraged and led to nationwide protests under the banner “Black Lives Matter”
Filing his appeal, Chauvin, 46, argued that the jury cannot be impartial because of the immense publicity around the case, thereby making his trial unfair.
“Pre-trial publicity was associated with threats of violence that have poisoned the jury”, said his appeal.
The media was overwhelmingly hostile and pervasive to Chauvin and the police in general, it said.
He further argued that at least the trial had been taken to a different location than Minneapolis, where potential jurors were not exposed to the heavy publicity surrounding the case.
He asked the court to throw out his conviction or at least his sentence.
In the pretrial submission to the court of appeals, Minnesota state prosecutors argued that Chauvin had “ one of the most transparent and cleanest trials in history”
Chauvin’s was a fair trial justifies the jury
The trial had 44 witnesses who saw the footage of the incident including Floyd’s arrest, they noted
Several allegations were made on this case questioning the just character of the court and impartiality of the jurors hearing the case, they argued that the jury situation would have been the same elsewhere, as “ the entire nation knew Chauvin’s infamous crime.”
