The former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd apparently doesn't think kneeling on someone's neck for more than nine minutes until they die is murder. Derek Chauvin filed an appeal of his murder conviction and 22.5-year sentence on Thursday, the last day he could legally do so, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "The District Court abused its discretion when it denied Appellant’s motion for change of venue or a new trial," Chauvin stated in the appeal request the Star Tribune obtained.
He also accused the state of committing "prejudicial prosecutorial misconduct" and abusing its discretion when it didn’t sequester the jury throughout the trial, “failed to make an official record of the numerous sidebar conferences that occurred during trials,” and denied an earlier motion for a new trial “due to juror misconduct.”
Chauvin listed in the appeal document 14 issues with the trial including:
Many of the arguments Chauvin raised had already been brought before the court by Eric Nelson, the attorney who represented him in the murder trial. The third-degree murder charge and Hall’s participation in the trial were on that list. Hall, a friend of Floyd's who was with him before his death, invoked his Fifth Amendment right protecting him against self-incrimination during the trial in April. Adrienne Cousins, Hall's attorney, said in court that Hall’s car has been searched twice and drugs have been found inside of it both times. “This leaves Mr. Hall potentially incriminating himself into a future prosecution of third-degree murder,” she said. Judge Peter Cahill agreed.
The decision to include the charge of third-degree murder in the case, however, wasn’t as clean cut. Cahill went back and forth in his decision but ended up determining that based on the precedent set in the case against former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor, the charge should be included in Chauvin’s case. "I feel bound by that," Cahill said, "and I feel it would be an abuse of discretion not to grant the [state's] motion."
The Minnesota Supreme Court overturned the third-degree murder conviction against Noor on Wednesday. Noor was convicted of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after shooting and killing a woman who called 911 to report a potential sexual assault behind her home. Noor testified during his trial in 2019 that while he was a passenger in his partner's car he heard a “loud bang on his squad car” that scared Noor so much he reached across his partner to fire through the driver's side window.
Because Noor was only sentenced on the murder count, his case will return to district court for sentencing on the manslaughter count, which could end in his supervised release around the year’s end, The Associated Press reported. Chauvin, however, was sentenced on the highest charge he was convicted of, second-degree murder. Third-degree murder requires a lower burden of proof than second-degree murder and is usually applicable when the accused acts in a way that endangers multiple people’s lives and kills one of those people, MSNBC’s Joy Reid explained during an interview with civil rights attorney Ben Crump. It’s unclear if the recent Minnesota Supreme Court decision would affect Chauvin’s appeal effort.
In the earlier proceedings against the murderer, Nelson also zeroed in on juror Brandon Mitchell over what he wore and what he said after a rally to commemorate the 57th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Mitchell, juror No. 52, told CBS-affiliated WCCO he attended the event to go to a related voter registration rally, and he explained that a photograph of him in a T-shirt with King's image and the words, “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks,” and “BLM” was only meant to make a broader reference to the circumstances of 2020. Nelson asked Mitchell how protests were related to the facts and evidence of the case during jury selection, and he responded that they weren't. “Well there’s no correlation between the protest and the facts,” Mitchell said. “The facts are the facts. There’s no correlation between those two things.” Nelson later struck out on getting a mistrial declared because of Mitchell and Rep. Maxine Waters.
Prior to the jury being sequestered for deliberations, Waters answered an interviewer's question about what demonstrators should do if Chauvin isn't convicted with: “We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.”
With that, Nelson brought up the possibility of a mistrial and said the jury should have been sequestered from the start of the trial. “My phone gives me alerts on things that just happened. I mean you can’t avoid it, and it is so pervasive that I just don’t know how this jury can really be said to be that they are free from the taint of this,” Nelson said. “And now that we have U.S. representatives threatening acts of violence in relation to this specific case, it’s mind-boggling to me judge.”
Cahill admonished Waters but ruled that her remarks weren’t grounds for a mistrial. “Well, I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned (...)” Cahill said.
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He also accused the state of committing "prejudicial prosecutorial misconduct" and abusing its discretion when it didn’t sequester the jury throughout the trial, “failed to make an official record of the numerous sidebar conferences that occurred during trials,” and denied an earlier motion for a new trial “due to juror misconduct.”
Chauvin listed in the appeal document 14 issues with the trial including:
Many of the arguments Chauvin raised had already been brought before the court by Eric Nelson, the attorney who represented him in the murder trial. The third-degree murder charge and Hall’s participation in the trial were on that list. Hall, a friend of Floyd's who was with him before his death, invoked his Fifth Amendment right protecting him against self-incrimination during the trial in April. Adrienne Cousins, Hall's attorney, said in court that Hall’s car has been searched twice and drugs have been found inside of it both times. “This leaves Mr. Hall potentially incriminating himself into a future prosecution of third-degree murder,” she said. Judge Peter Cahill agreed.
The decision to include the charge of third-degree murder in the case, however, wasn’t as clean cut. Cahill went back and forth in his decision but ended up determining that based on the precedent set in the case against former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor, the charge should be included in Chauvin’s case. "I feel bound by that," Cahill said, "and I feel it would be an abuse of discretion not to grant the [state's] motion."
The Minnesota Supreme Court overturned the third-degree murder conviction against Noor on Wednesday. Noor was convicted of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after shooting and killing a woman who called 911 to report a potential sexual assault behind her home. Noor testified during his trial in 2019 that while he was a passenger in his partner's car he heard a “loud bang on his squad car” that scared Noor so much he reached across his partner to fire through the driver's side window.
Because Noor was only sentenced on the murder count, his case will return to district court for sentencing on the manslaughter count, which could end in his supervised release around the year’s end, The Associated Press reported. Chauvin, however, was sentenced on the highest charge he was convicted of, second-degree murder. Third-degree murder requires a lower burden of proof than second-degree murder and is usually applicable when the accused acts in a way that endangers multiple people’s lives and kills one of those people, MSNBC’s Joy Reid explained during an interview with civil rights attorney Ben Crump. It’s unclear if the recent Minnesota Supreme Court decision would affect Chauvin’s appeal effort.
In the earlier proceedings against the murderer, Nelson also zeroed in on juror Brandon Mitchell over what he wore and what he said after a rally to commemorate the 57th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Mitchell, juror No. 52, told CBS-affiliated WCCO he attended the event to go to a related voter registration rally, and he explained that a photograph of him in a T-shirt with King's image and the words, “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks,” and “BLM” was only meant to make a broader reference to the circumstances of 2020. Nelson asked Mitchell how protests were related to the facts and evidence of the case during jury selection, and he responded that they weren't. “Well there’s no correlation between the protest and the facts,” Mitchell said. “The facts are the facts. There’s no correlation between those two things.” Nelson later struck out on getting a mistrial declared because of Mitchell and Rep. Maxine Waters.
Prior to the jury being sequestered for deliberations, Waters answered an interviewer's question about what demonstrators should do if Chauvin isn't convicted with: “We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.”
With that, Nelson brought up the possibility of a mistrial and said the jury should have been sequestered from the start of the trial. “My phone gives me alerts on things that just happened. I mean you can’t avoid it, and it is so pervasive that I just don’t know how this jury can really be said to be that they are free from the taint of this,” Nelson said. “And now that we have U.S. representatives threatening acts of violence in relation to this specific case, it’s mind-boggling to me judge.”
Cahill admonished Waters but ruled that her remarks weren’t grounds for a mistrial. “Well, I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned (...)” Cahill said.
RELATED: Guilty verdict for white cop won't do: Chauvin defense moves for new trial
RELATED: Derek Chauvin murders George Floyd in broad daylight, but Black juror is called into question
RELATED: It's no wonder police think it's okay to joke about Black men dying: Courts keep protecting cops