Court considers third-degree charge against Derek Chauvin
>>MINNEAPOLIS: The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that a lower court must reconsider whether to add a third-degree murder charge against Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who is scheduled to go on trial next week for the death of George Floyd.
The ruling, coming just days before jury selection in Chauvin’s trial was set to begin on Monday, also raises the possibility of a delay in the trial. The unanimous decision by the appeals court means that the trial court may again hear arguments from Chauvin and prosecutors from the Minnesota attorney general’s office over whether Chauvin should face the third-degree murder charge.
He is already facing a more serious charge of second-degree murder as well as second-degree manslaughter, but prosecutors have sought to add on the third-degree murder charge, which carried up to 25 years in prison and would give them an additional avenue to win a conviction.
Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, could appeal the ruling to the Minnesota Supreme Court. He declined to comment on Friday.
Third-degree murder was the first charge Chauvin faced after he was arrested in the days following Floyd’s death on May 25 last year. At the time, the charge prompted an outcry from both activists and lawyers, who said Chauvin should face a more severe charge and that a third-degree murder charge did not fit the circumstances of Floyd’s death.
Third-degree murder in Minnesota, they noted, has long been understood as an act — “evinced with a depraved mind,” according to the statute — that is dangerous to a group of people rather than one person. An often-cited example is a suspect who fires a gun randomly into a passing train or someone who drives a car into a crowd. In addition, drug dealers have often been prosecuted with third-degree murder in Minnesota when one of their customers dies of an overdose.
Going by that interpretation of third-degree murder, Judge Peter Cahill, who is presiding over Chauvin’s trial, dismissed the charge in the fall and upheld the other charges.
But a recent decision by the Court of Appeals in a separate case appeared to reshape the interpretation of third-degree murder. Upholding a conviction of third-degree murder for Mohamed Noor, a former police officer who shot and killed a woman while on duty, the court determined that third-degree murder could be applied in a case in which the suspect’s actions were dangerous to a single person.
When prosecutors sought to reintroduce the third-degree murder charge in February, Mr Cahill rejected their arguments, saying that he disagreed with the appeals court ruling and that it was not binding because the Minnesota Supreme Court could still overturn it. If Chauvin is convicted of third-degree murder and the Minnesota Supreme Court overturns the Noor decision, Chauvin’s conviction on that count could also be overturned, and prosecutors would not be able to retry him.