MINNEAPOLIS (CN) — With Derek Chauvin in custody after his murder conviction for the killing of George Floyd, celebrations broke out Tuesday night around the Twin Cities. The verdict is far from the case’s end, though, with another trial for Chauvin’s three colleagues on the horizon and sentencing still two months away. Legal experts in Minneapolis and its closest neighbor, the state capital of St. Paul, chimed in Wednesday on the pending issues in Chauvin’s case as well as its possible impact on the future of policing.
The next big hurdle in Chauvin’s case is sentencing. Though the former officer was convicted of all charges, his sentence will be determined by the most severe conviction, second-degree murder. That charge comes with a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, but the typical sentence is between 10 and 15 years and the recommended sentence is 12 and a half years, according to Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. Prosecutors have also raised a handful of causes for an upward departure in Chauvin’s sentencing, and Moran agreed with two professors from St. Paul’s Mitchell Hamline School of Law that at least a few were a sure bet.
The five grounds cited by prosecutors for a higher sentence include that Chauvin’s crime was witnessed by a child; that he abused a position of authority in committing it; that Floyd was particularly vulnerable by virtue of being handcuffed, in Chauvin’s custody and calling out for help; that the murder was particularly cruel; and that it was carried out with the assistance of three or more other people.
Chauvin waived his right to have a jury decide his sentence at the beginning of deliberations, so Judge Peter Cahill will be evaluating all those factors.
“It’s really just a practical decision. If the jury’s going to convict him… they were implicitly finding that these aggravating factors were present,” Moran said.
Moran and Mitchell Hamline’s Rick Petry and Bradford Colbert agreed that at least the “witnessed by a child” factor was sure to apply. Several minor eyewitnesses testified at Chauvin’s trial, including a 9-year-old.
The trio, interviewed separately, differed on some other issues. Colbert said he was interested in the outcome of the “group of three or more” factor.
“It was clearly intended for gangs,” he said of the statute which created the factor. “And so if you believe the Minneapolis Police Department is a gang, it’s kind of an interesting reading of that.”
Colbert added that this was a separate legal issue from the upcoming trial of three other officers involved in Floyd’s deadly arrest, currently scheduled for August.
Petry said he would be interested to see if Cahill considered that trial anyway. “It has yet to be adjudicated whether they are going to be found criminally liable for helping, and so I don’t know where he’ll land on that one," he said.
The possibility of Floyd being considered particularly vulnerable was also not a certainty for all the experts.
“He’s handcuffed and on the ground, I think it’s pretty clear,” Colbert said.
But Petry was less certain.
“I think that’s a point of contention. The defense theory was that he was high on opioids, and all this kind of stuff. If that’s true, then perhaps he was a vulnerable person,” he said. As to the handcuffs and Floyd’s cries for help, those were on video. “I think the evidence was pretty clear on that, but again, I don’t know where Judge Cahill will land on that,” he said.