Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of killing George Floyd, will appeal his case to the Supreme Court of the United States, and experts spoke to Newsweek about the chances of success.
Chauvin's attorneys announced on Wednesday that they have petitioned the nine justices to hear the case and review the lower court decision to convict him for the murder of Floyd. Floyd's death, which was captured on video, triggered protests across the world against police brutality and sparked a national reckoning over racial injustice in the U.S. His name is largely associated with the Black Lives Matter movement.
The viral clip from May 2020 showed Chauvin, who is white, kneeling on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes as the 46-year-old Black man repeatedly told officers, "I can't breathe." Almost a year after Floyd's death, Chauvin was found guilty in April 2021 of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to 22-and-a-half years in prison.
The former officer later plead guilty to federal charges of violating Floyd's civil rights, which led to a sentence of 21 years in prison and run concurrently to the state sentence.
Chauvin's lawyers say the Supreme Court should overturn his conviction because they say he was denied his right to a fair trial due to pretrial publicity and concerns for violence if Chauvin was acquitted. His attorneys specifically cite the lower court's refusal to change the venue of the trial and the timing of the city's settlement announcement during jury selection. In the wake of Floyd's death, Minneapolis agreed to pay a $27 million settlement to Floyd's family.
Although the Supreme Court has taken up a number of controversial cases that touch on the nation's culture wars in recent years, legal experts tell Newsweek the chances that the justices will hear, let alone overturn, Chauvin's case are "extremely low."
Not only did the Minnesota Supreme Court already decline to hear Chauvin's case, the arguments that his attorneys are raising are "relatively weak," former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek.
"The entire world saw the video of Chauvin killing Floyd. How would a change of venue to another city in Minnesota change that?" Rahmani asked, adding that there was "no basis" for Chauvin to have demanded that the city of Minneapolis wait until the criminal trial ended to announce its settlement with the Floyd family.
Rahmani said all those decisions had been at the discretion of trial judge Peter Cahill and addressed during the "very extensive" jury selection.
"Even if Chauvin could show some error, it was harmless and would not have affected the outcome of the case," he said.
Former federal prosecutor and elected state attorney Michael McAuliffe also pointed out that Chauvin had already admitted to fault by pleading guilty in the federal case.
"The fact that Chauvin pled guilty to federal charges arising from the same conduct further dampens the US Supreme Court's likely evaluation of whether any federal constitutional issues need to be addressed and whether any equitable reasons somehow support exercising its narrow jurisdiction," McAuliffe said.
Rahmani said even in the rare case that Chauvin's conviction is overturned by the Supreme Court, he would have to be retried for Floyd's murder while serving federal prison time.
"Simply, Chauvin's state criminal case is at an end," McAuliffe said.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics. ... Read more
