By Aaron Miller-
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 of the Afro American tomorrow, Friday.
Chauvin was found guilty on all three charges — second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter .The Minnesota Attorney General’s office requested a sentence of 30 years based on four aggravating sentencing factors. His killing of Floyd led to wide protests in the U.S and in many countries after years of police brutality against black peopkle in the U.S
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Chauvin will be sentenced according to Minnesota sentencing guidelines that determine “presumptive sentences” , e recommended sentences for felony offences. Presumptive sentences offer guidelines to determine 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.
Chauvin’s presumptive sentence is a prison term between more than 10 and a half years and 15 years.
Cahill endorsed the four factors in a June ruling, saying prosecutors proved them at trial beyond a reasonable doubt. The length of time Chauvin kept Floyd pinned to the ground under his knee was “particularly cruel” and an “egregious abuse” of Chauvin’s authority as a peace officer, the judge said.
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“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 obviously 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.”
Judge Peter Cahill has the leverage to depart from the sentencing guidelines in either direction, but must justify going above or below the recommended sentence if he does so. The aggravated 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.
Chauvin has shown no remorse, claiming that he did what he was trained to do, throughout his trial, meaning that the remorse that Cahill could be looking for when determining a sentence for Chauvin has been lacking.
Chauvin’s lawyer filed a motion last month requesting a new trial alleging misconduct by the judge, jurors and prosecutors, but the bar to throw out the verdict is high.
The evil veteran police officer has been indicted federally on civil rights charges from this case as well as one for a 2017 incident in which he is accused of striking a 14-year-old child multiple times in the head with a flashlight.
“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.
Judge Peter Cahill will issue a sentence only on the top charge of unintentional second-degree murder. Under Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines. The harshest penalty for unintentional second-degree murder is 40 years in state custody. But for someone with no criminal record, like Chauvin, it carries a presumptive sentence of 12.5 years and a discretionary range of 10 to 15 years.
Cahill will hear evidence and arguments from both sides on whether to depart upward or downward from the guidelines. Victim impact statements are expected on behalf of Floyd and the defendant as part of the evidence. Chauvin also has the option to speak on his behalf. Cahill may also rule on defense post-verdict motions for a new trial and for a hearing to probe allegations of juror misconduct.
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