OAK PARK HEIGHTS, Minn. (CN) — Derek Chauvin, representing himself, appealed his convictions for the murder of George Floyd, arguing Thursday that Judge Peter Cahill allowed prosecutorial misconduct, misstated the law in jury instructions, fumbled its handling of jury selection and misconduct and allowed prosecutors to lead witnesses.
In a court filing late Thursday night, the former Minneapolis police officer also argued that his highly-publicized trial was improperly held in Minneapolis despite heavy public scrutiny and should have included testimony from Floyd acquaintance Morries Hall. The court should also have kept a record of sidebar conversations, he said, and permitted evidence regarding a previous arrest where Floyd appeared to hide pills in his mouth.
Floyd’s death in May 2020 after Chauvin knelt on his neck for several minutes was the flashpoint for protests and riots in Minneapolis and then around the world. Chauvin’s conviction in April of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter spawned celebrations in the city’s streets, but disputes over the future of the police force that employed him for over 19 years have continued.
Chauvin filed his appeal to the Minnesota Court of Appeals pro se — without an attorney representing him — and last minute, on the last day of the 90-degree period in which he was allowed to do so. He requested the overturn of a recent denial of his request for a public defender, saying that the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association had stopped paying for the services of defense attorney Eric Nelson after his conviction. Nelson has continued to represent Chauvin in two ongoing federal civil rights cases against him.
Cahill granted, then vacated, an order granting in forma pauperis status to Chauvin on Friday, finally deciding that Chauvin was not indigent and would have to pay fees to the court. Chauvin sought a stay from the Court of Appeals pending the outcome of his request that the state Supreme Court review the denial of his request for a public defender.
Chauvin’s third-degree murder conviction is likely to be overturned. The Minnesota Supreme Court recently reaffirmed its longstanding holding that third-degree “depraved-mind” murder requires that a defendant kill their victim through a reckless act that endangers more than one person. Chauvin’s conviction occurred while a Court of Appeals ruling to the contrary held sway; with that ruling reversed, the conviction is likely to be vacated.
Sentencing in Minnesota follows the highest-convicted offense, so a reversal of the third-degree conviction is unlikely to substantially impact Chauvin’s 270-month sentence. The Supreme Court’s decision also overturned the only murder conviction for fellow former Minneapolis officer Mohamed Noor, making Chauvin the only police officer in Minnesota’s history to be convicted of murder for an on-duty crime.
Hall, who invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when asked to testify at trial, was set to play a major role in the defense’s theory of the case, which held that Floyd had died of a drug overdose. Hall, who Floyd’s girlfriend Courteney Ross testified had sometimes sold the couple drugs, was in the car with Floyd at the time of his deadly May 2020 arrest in South Minneapolis.
Public defender Adrienne Cousins told Cahill that any relevant line of questioning Nelson could use on Hall would put him at risk of self-incrimination, including for third-degree murder if Chauvin were not convicted. Cahill, after some back-and-forth on proposed questions, ultimately agreed and dismissed Hall from the case.
Chauvin wrote in his statement of case that Hall’s testimony or his statements to law enforcement should have been admitted under an exception for statements against the speaker’s interest in Minnesota’s rules of evidence and that failing to do so violated his right to confront witnesses against him.
Chauvin also repeated arguments from early in his trial about the choice of venue. Attorneys for Chauvin and co-defendants Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao all moved for changes of venue early on, seeking to move the trial out of the Twin Cities metro to rural or deep-suburban courthouses. They cited safety concerns, with protesters still gathering outside every hearing, and said that a jury in Hennepin County could not be impartial because of the abundance of pre-trial publicity.
Cahill denied all those motions, and the trial was eventually held in the Hennepin County Government Center, heavily fortified with razor wire, concrete and a substantial contingent of law enforcement.
Chauvin also contended that prosecutors’ discovery disclosures were “unnecessarily disorganized … and buried amongst irrelevant documents,” an echo of complaints made by Chauvin, Lane, Thao and Kueng throughout trial prep. He argued that Cahill had improperly denied Chauvin’s motions for a juror-misconduct hearing and a new trial after it came to light that a juror had attended a march commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. while wearing a hat saying “BLM” and a shirt bearing King’s face and the phrase “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks.” The phrase was the refrain of Al Sharpton’s eulogy for Floyd.
Chauvin is currently imprisoned in the Minnesota Department of Corrections’ maximum-security Oak Park Heights facility. He is awaiting trial on civil rights charges related to his arrest of Floyd and a prior arrest in which he allegedly badly beat a teenager with a flashlight. Chauvin pled not guilty to all charges in both of those cases last week.
He also faces tax-fraud charges in Washington County, where he lived prior to his arrest and where Oak Park Heights is located.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office, which prosecuted Chauvin on the murder and manslaughter charges, did not respond to a request for comment late Friday morning.
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