The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin‘s appeal of his conviction for second-degree murder in the killing of George Floyd throughout a 2020 arrest.
Floyd’s murder galvanised widespread protests throughout the nation in opposition to police brutality, bringing focus to the problem of racial justice.
The justices declined to hear the appeal that Chauvin filed after a Minnesota appellate court docket upheld his 2021 murder conviction and rejected his request for a brand new trial.
Chauvin‘s attorneys argued that their consumer was denied a good trial in 2021 due to pretrial publicity and considerations for violence in the occasion of an acquittal.
He was found guilty by a 12-member jury in April 2021 of three prices of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter following a three-week trial that included testimony from 45 witnesses, together with bystanders, police officers, and medical specialists.
Chauvin is serving a 22-and-a-half year prison sentence for murdering the Black man by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes throughout an arrest.
His lawyer urged the Supreme Court to grant the appeal to contemplate whether or not jurors had been biased by a want to keep away from the “risk of hurt to the group if a responsible verdict was not reached”. Chauvin’s lawyer additionally stated one juror could have hid doable bias by failing to disclose in the course of the jury choice course of that he had attended “an anti-police ‘George Floyd’ rally”.
Attorneys for Minnesota didn’t reply to Chauvin‘s petition, asking the Supreme Court to hear his appeal.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals in April rebuffed Chauvin‘s appeal, upholding his conviction and rejecting his request for a brand new trial. Minnesota’s high court docket in July denied Chauvin‘s request to assessment the case, prompting his appeal to the US Supreme Court.
In a 25 Might 2020 confrontation captured on video by onlookers, Chauvin pushed his knee onto the neck of the 46-year-old man whereas he and three of his fellow officers had been making an attempt to arrest Floyd.
Floyd was accused of utilizing a pretend $20 invoice to purchase cigarettes at a grocery retailer.
A bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe”. Floyd’s loss of life sparked protests worldwide, a few of which turned violent, and compelled a nationwide reckoning with police brutality and racism that’s nonetheless enjoying out.
Three different former officers who had been on the scene obtained lesser state and federal sentences for his or her roles in Floyd’s loss of life.
Further reporting from the businesses
