Ex-Officer Chauvin Is Found Guilty On All Counts!

Ex-Officer Chauvin Is Found Guilty On All Counts!

The jury has spoken.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been found guilty on all three charges in connection with the May 2020 death of George Floyd.

Chauvin, 45, was charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. With Americans on edge as they awaited the verdict in one of the most-watched trials since OJ, the jury announced that it has found him guilty across the board.

His bail was immediately revoked, and he was led away in handcuffs as he was remanded to jail. Cheers and cars honking could be heard outside the Hennepin County Courthouse as the verdict was read. Chauvin’s sentencing is scheduled for eight weeks from now, the judge said. He could be sent to prison for decades.

It took the jury only a little over 10 hours to seal the ex-officer’s fate. When it was announced, they had reached a verdict, the city of Minneapolis, and indeed the nation was gripped with anxiety and dread awaiting the actual reading of the jury’s verdict, fearing what could happen if Chauvin were somehow found not guilty. However, those fears of violence instead turned to cheers of jubilation as the crowds felt that some sense of justice for Mr. Floyd – and for all Americans of color — had been achieved. 

The jury was made up of seven women and five men. Six jurors were White, four were Black, and two self-identified as multiracial. Jurors were sequestered, their whereabouts kept secret, during deliberations that began Monday afternoon.

Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin held his knee against his neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds; as a handcuffed, Floyd repeatedly said that he could not breathe. Floyd’s death prompted widespread protests, which lasted months, and calls for an end to police brutality and systemic racism.

Could There Be an Appeal?

Newsmax is reporting that Chauvin will likely seek to overturn his murder and manslaughter convictions by arguing that the jury was prejudiced by media coverage and a settlement in the civil case brought by George Floyd’s family, though his odds of success are slim, legal experts said.

Chauvin’s attorneys will have to notify the trial court within 60 days if they plan to appeal. His lawyers then have months to review transcripts and court filings dating from the start of the case to build their arguments.

Two weeks before trial testimony began, Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a civil lawsuit brought by Floyd’s family over his death.

The agreement was reached while jury selection in the criminal case was underway, and Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson said the settlement had an “incredible propensity to taint a jury pool.”

Speaking on Newsmax TVs Spicer & Co. soon after the verdict was read, famed attorney and legal scholar Alan Dershowitz said he was doubtful that the Derek Chauvin guilty verdict was a product of due process and the rule of law. Instead, he pronounced the verdict the result of “outside influences.”

”I have no real confidence that this verdict, which may be correct in some ways, but I have no confidence that this verdict was produced by due process and the rule of law, rather than the influence of the crowd,” Dershowitz said to host Sean Spicer.