Brandon Williams, the nephew of George Floyd, visits Black Lives Matter Plaza on the one-year anniversary of George Floyd's death on May 25, 2021 in Washington, DC.
A Minnesota judge denied Derek Chauvin a new trial on Thursday night (June 24), just hours before the former officer is due to be sentenced in the murder of George Floyd last May.
In a decision overnight, Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill ruled against a post-verdict motion for a new trial for Chauvin who was convicted of second-degree murder two months ago.
Cahill wrote that the convicted murderer “failed to demonstrate...the Court abused its discretion or committed error such that Defendant was deprived of his constitutional right to a fair trial,” per CNN.
Cahill added in the ruling that Chauvin didn’t adequately show prosecutorial or juror misconduct. Chauvin’s defense team had previously argued that “errors, abuses of discretion, prosecutorial and jury misconduct” interfered with the fairness of the trial.
Chauvin is set to be sentenced on Friday (June 25) by Cahill. State prosecutors have requested a 30-year sentence, while Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s defense lawyer, argued his client should get probation for his actions.
Chauvin, along with three other former officers, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane, and Alexander Kueng, face federal civil rights charges. Chauvin is also facing federal charges stemming from a 2017 incident involving a Black teen in which the officer allegedly knelt on the teen’s neck for 17 minutes.
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