Derek Chauvin has requested a new trial only two weeks after he was convicted of the murder of George Floyd. The former Minneapolis police officer was found guilty of killing Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes despite Floyd’s pleas that he couldn’t breathe. The incident was caught on video and submitted as evidence of Chauvin’s callous and cruel behavior and likely played a large part in his conviction. However, Chauvin’s lawyer claims his client didn’t get a fair trial, Sky News reports.
- Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, really thinks he has a chance here. In a motion filed to District Court Judge Peter Cahill, Nelson claimed that there was not only jury and prosecutorial misconduct (of which there is no indication or proof) but that there were “errors of law” at trial and that Chauvin being found guilty is contrary to law. So was killing a man in broad daylight, one assumes, but Nelson didn’t mention that.
- Apparently, Chauvin was only convicted because of the publicity of the case. Nelson argues that the judge abused the discretion of the court and denied Chauvin his right to a fair trial because he refused to move the trial to another county. This, Nelson believes, led the jury to be predisposed to convict his client. The fact that the entire nation saw the video of what Chauvin did and it’s right there in black and white on film making it literally impossible for any jury anywhere not to convict him didn’t seem to dawn on Nelson or his client.
- Nelson wants the jury’s verdict “impeached.” This is because he claims the jurors “committed misconduct, felt threatened or intimidated, felt race-based pressure during the proceedings and/or failed to adhere to instructions during deliberations.” Again, no proof of these claims was provided or indicated. However, it seems that Nelson believes since one member of the jury once attended a Martin Luther King Jr. march in Washington, D.C. while wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt is against Chauvin’s human rights?
- This is the first of Chauvin’s appeals but won’t be the last. Derek Chauvin has never taken responsibility for his actions and likely never will. His request for a new trial will most likely be denied, but that won’t stop Chauvin. He will continue to appeal his conviction and later his sentencing for the rest of his life. The only solace is that he should be making all those appeals from behind bars.
