Chauvin seeks probation for Floyd death, state wants 30 years

(Reuters) -Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin asked a judge on Wednesday for probation after being convicted for the murder of George Floyd, while the prosecution said his crime “shocked the Nation’s conscience” and he should be imprisoned for 30 years.

In a motion filed with Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill, lawyer Eric Nelson said Chauvin’s actions in pinning Floyd to the pavement during an arrest was “best described as an error made in good faith” based on his training.

“Mr. Chauvin asks the Court to look beyond its findings, to his background, his lack of criminal history, his amenability to probation, to the unusual facts of this case, and to his being a product of a ‘broken’ system,” Nelson wrote.

The lawyer asked the judge for a so-called dispositional departure resulting in probation or a downward durational departure, which he said would lead to a sentence less strict than the 128 months to 180 months suggested by state guidelines.

In their own filing, prosecutors argued that Chauvin acted with cruelty, among other aggravating factors, and therefore deserved twice the upper limit of the sentencing range, or 30 years in prison.

“His actions traumatized the community, prompting an outpouring of grief and protest across Minneapolis and the State. And his actions shocked the conscience of the Nation,” prosecutors in the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office wrote.

A Minneapolis jury in April found Chauvin, 45, guilty of second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter after hearing three weeks of testimony in a highly publicized trial. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 25.

He is being held at a maximum security prison in Oak Park Heights, Minnesota, while awaiting sentencing.

Last month, Cahill found that prosecutors had shown there were four aggravating factors in the death of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man.

The judge said Chauvin, who is white, abused his position of trust and authority and treated Floyd with particular cruelty. He committed the crime as part of a group with three other officers and did so with children present, Cahill ruled.

Floyd’s May 25, 2020, death – after he was handcuffed on a Minneapolis street with Chauvin’s knee on his neck for more than nine minutes – prompted massive protests against racism and police brutality in many U.S. cities and other countries.

In Wednesday’s motion, Nelson said the fact that the officers on the scene called for an ambulance “served to mitigate any cruelty” in the treatment of Floyd. Chauvin, he noted, remained on the scene until medical assistance arrived.

“Mr. Chauvin has established that he is particularly amenable to probation and is a prime candidate for a stringent probationary sentence plus time served,” Nelson wrote.

Chauvin has been in prison since his April 20 conviction.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Bill Berkrot)

Minnesota judge finds aggravating factors in George Floyd murder

(Reuters) – A Minnesota judge has ruled that aggravating factors were involved in the death of George Floyd, opening the possibility of a longer sentence for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

Chauvin, a white former officer convicted in a Minnesota state court of murdering Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, during an arrest last May, is scheduled to be sentenced on June 25.

In a six-page ruling dated Tuesday, District Court Judge Peter Cahill found that prosecutors had proven Chauvin abused his position of trust and authority, treated Floyd with particular cruelty, committed the crime as a group and did so with children present, all aggravating factors.

“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 but during which the defendant objectively remained indifferent to Mr. Floyd’s pleas,” Cahill wrote.

A jury convicted Chauvin, 45, of second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter on April 20 after hearing three weeks of testimony in a highly publicized trial.

Floyd’s death after he was handcuffed on a Minneapolis street with Chauvin’s knee on his neck for more than nine minutes prompted massive protests against racism and police brutality in many U.S. cities and other countries last summer.

Three other former officers who were at the scene have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s death and are set to go on trial on Aug. 23.

Cahill, who presided over the trial, will also sentence Chauvin, who technically faces a combined maximum 75 years in prison if the sentences run consecutively. State guidelines, however, give judges leeway to impose sentences that are far less harsh.

Prosecutors on April 30 asked Cahill to consider several aggravating circumstances in Floyd’s death so that he could make “an upward sentencing departure” in the case.

While Cahill accepted most of the prosecutors’ arguments that aggravating circumstances were present, he rejected one of them, finding that they had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Floyd was “particularly vulnerable.”

Also pending before Cahill is a May 4 request for a new trial in which Chauvin’s lawyer argued that his client was deprived of a fair trial because of prosecutorial and jury misconduct, errors of law at trial and that the verdict was contrary to the law.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey and Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Aurora Ellis and Howard Goller)