EX-POLICEMAN CONVICTED OF FLOYD’S MURDER SEEKS RETRIAL

Derek Chauvin, the white ex-policeman convicted of murdering AfricanAmerican man George Floyd, asked on Tuesday for a new trial on claims of jury and prosecution misconduct.

The 45-year-old - who knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes in Minneapolis faces up to 40 years in prison after being found guilty last month in a case that prompted a national reckoning on racial injustice and police brutality.

Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson argued that his client did not get a fair trial due to publicity around the case, court and prosecution errors, as well as “race-based pressure” on the jury. He also alleges that jurors should have been isolated during the trial and that the case could only get a fair hearing in a different place.

“The publicity here was so pervasive and so prejudicial before and during this trial that it amounted to a structural defect in the proceedings.”

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Floyd family, fiercely opposed the motion on Twitter: “No. No. No. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.”