Derek Chauvin’s sentencing is today [BUMPED UP with UPDATE – please scroll down for new posts]
UPDATE 4:00 PM
The sentence is no surprise. Judge Cahill has split the difference in favor of the prosecution, but not given them the full measure of what they’ve asked for:
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced Friday afternoon to 22½ years in prison for murdering George Floyd last year by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes.
Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill handed down the sentence after hearing victim-impact statements from four members of Floyd’s family, while Chauvin’s mother pleaded for leniency and Chauvin gave brief remarks.
Chauvin was taken immediately into custody for him to start serving his sentence.
Chauvin’s attorney had asked for probation and time served, or alternately, less prison time than the 10½ to 15 years recommended by state sentencing guidelines for someone like Chauvin who has no criminal history. Prosecutors had asked for 30 years, noting that there were four aggravating factors that supported a higher term than outlined by the guidelines.
Chauvin is the second officer in modern Minnesota history to be sentenced to prison time for killing a civilian on the job…
Former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor was sentenced in 2019 to 12½ years in prison on second-degree murder for fatally shooting Justine Ruszczyk Damond while responding to her 911 call about a possible sexual assault in an alley.
Noor is a black man from Somalia and Damond was white. He shot a totally innocent Damond, and yet his sentence was just about half of Chauvin’s. I’m not going to go into the facts of Floyd’s death, because I’ve written an enormous number of posts about it already. Suffice to say I believe that Chauvin’s conviction on counts of murder and today’s sentencing are racially motivated and involve fear of the mob reaction if the court had been too lenient.
I wonder whether Chauvin will survive prison. It really depends on the conditions under which he’s held, and they are likely to involve a lot of solitary confinement. He has an appeal pending and is also facing more charges:
Chauvin is in court and has the opportunity to address Judge Cahill before sentencing, but he is in a box. He has bona fide appellate issues and he remains in jeopardy in the duplicative federal civil rights case filed against him and his colleagues. Anything he says can be used against him in a hypothetical retrial in state court and in the very real federal case that is pending against him.
Another show trial is planned.
Chauvin has a mother, who spoke at the hearing:
Chauvin’s defense began its arguments for leniency with a statement from his mother, Carolyn Pawlenty, who told the court: “When you sentence my son, you will also be sentencing me.”
“Derek devoted 19 years of his life to the Minneapolis Police Department. It has been difficult for me to read and hear what the media, public and prosecution team believe Derek to be an aggressive, heartless, uncaring person. I can tell you that is far from the truth,” she said, before addressing him and recalling that her happiest moment other than giving birth to him was pinning his police badge on him upon becoming an officer.
“My son’s identity has also been reduced to that as a racist,” she said in her first public comments since Floyd’s death. “I want this court to know that none of these things are true and my son is a good man. … He has a big heart and always put others ahead of his own.”
Pawlenty said she believes in her son’s innocence, and “I will never waver from that.”
That’s the end of my update for now. The following is my original post, prior to the sentencing itself.
It’s being followed live at Legal Insurrection:
Under normal sentencing guidelines, Chauvin would get 12 years. With enhancements, the maximum 30 year sentence could increase. The prosecution is asking for a 30-year sentence.
I expect the verdict to be closer to the 30-year mark than the 12-year mark. Chauvin, who has been regularly regarded as the most heinous example of police brutality, must be maximally sentenced or the mob will erupt again and destroy more of the city of Minneapolis – or what’s left of it.
The mob may decide to riot anyway, whatever the sentence may be.
They they having rioting, then Minneapolis would have brought it on themselves.
I expect celebratory looting.
The judge didn’t want his house burned to the ground and that’s why he imposed such a sentence.
There will be looting and rioting tonight. The Left is *never* satisfied.
A death that was not motivated by diversity; then, a novel judgment, social label, and democratic hunters that are. Nice (no diversity intended).
There will be looting and rioting tonight.
With a few “burdens” caught in the crossfire. Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter.
I expect celebratory looting
Doesn’t California have a legal bag limit for redistributive change?
Like winning an NBA championship.
Burn it all down & grab a few flatscreens while they’re at it.
“Sow the wind & reap the whirlwind.”
We can only hope.
Is it wrong though, I wonder, to laugh at cowards and weaklings suffering a fate they have brought upon themselves?
Well, actually I don’t wonder. F**k-em.
DNW:
Oh, so you think the only people hurt by riots are those who deserve it and who are “cowards and weaklings” whom you laugh at?
Generalize much? Simplistic much?
Chauvin is innocent.
Political imprisonment is a feature of the current Democrat/Fascist regime.
It’s the KKK way, all day today.
neo on June 25, 2021 at 4:54 pm said:
No. Nor did I say any such thing. Sure, there are no doubt elderly church-going grandmas who are stuck in districts lorded over by pink haired transsexual lunatics and woke schoolmarms. But you have to ask yourself … is there any point in trying to stay the hand of “Nature”, when it slaps back those who imagine they now sit on its throne?
And basically, once the system of moral reciprocity has broken down, it is only saps or religious fanatics that go on acting as if it has not.
When it comes to Portland or Minneapolis, it is not as if these polities don’t have an ideological history which they are proud of.
So, yeah it’s a generalization. But I am not sure what is simplistic about shrugging at the fate of those who have for the most part insistently sown what they seem about to reap.
Maybe you want to go off in search of those 10 righteous men … in such a case I would not try and stop you.
This is how you create a martyr.
It is also how you destroy a vital institution called the police force. Not just in Minneapolis.
A very expensive decision.
Oh, so you think the only people hurt by riots are those who deserve it and who are “cowards and weaklings” whom you laugh at?
Neo, I think the city, if not the minority of sane voters who don’t want this, deserves to lose the entire police force. What will probably be left soon are those cops who cannot get a job in a better suburb or another field.
There was a time when black heroes were not criminals…
see Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, George Washington Carver, Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Bessie Coleman, Jesse LeRoy Brown, Matthew Henson,
and if this place be oppressed, then how did Blanche K. Bruce, Robert Smalls, Joseph Rainey, John R. Lynch and Josiah Walls all become statesmen when once they were slaves?
“ Judge Cahill has split the difference in favor of the prosecution, but not given them the full measure of what they’ve asked for:”
Isn’t that such a pithy summary of Cahill’s conduct in this entire travesty? In many ways I despise him for it even more, because the supposed moderation makes the poison go down smoother.
DNW:
There are more than “a few elderly church-going grandmas” there who will be harmed, and who have not sought this.
And you weren’t just “shrugging,” you were laughing and saying F-them about those you think “sought this,” most of whom probably did not.
Cahill is unfit for the position he holds.
Again, the disparity in sentencing is readily explained by the contemporary reality of liberal politics. Everything is status-driven.
“The judge didn’t want his house burned to the ground and that’s why he imposed such a sentence.”
Ah… the parallel to Pontius Pilate, in that to satisfy the mob, he condemns a man innocent of the charges made against him.
History may not actually repeat itself but because human nature remains, it does have parallels.
No, I did not say they ” ‘ sought this’ “. I said that they had brought it upon themselves and then in the subsequent comment that they were reaping what they had themselves sown.
Would you like a cite in support of that contention?
I was however asking if it was wrong to laugh and implied I could not find a reason not to.
And with regard to those who voted the city council in? Yes … F’ them
Owen,
If you are the Owen that left the comment at Althouse today, e-mail me at twixella@aol.com. We have a discord for former Althouse commenters if you are interested.
It is an injustice, but we are a banana republic these days with political prisoners, reeducation camps, and other sundries.
The narrative will not support rioting and looting in the absence of a cause that can be leveraged for political gain – so I predict the police will be instructed not to allow it, and it won’t happen.
Like his arrest, trial, conviction, and sentencing, Derek Chauvin’s survival in prison will be subject to the arbitrary and ever-shifting requirements of the narrative. There will be a reasonable effort to keep him safe, no more, and of course, ‘mistakes happen’, as Jeffery Epstein and James McAfee can no longer attest. Let’s hope Chauvin doesn’t know anything credible that can get anyone important into trouble.
I was sad about this today for a little while, but I think I burned out most of my strong feelings during the trial, so fortunately, my mood of today passed relatively quickly. I’m glad that Chauvin at least got a chance to say something, no matter how brief. I was hoping for a little more meat on the bones, but I certainly understand his reasons for playing it close to the vest.
I’m not sure if much is changed now that the sentencing is concluded. Apparently there were no dramatic, physical courtroom scenes today, right? I mean altercations or shouting or things like that.
It is an injustice, but we are a banana republic these days with political prisoners
A travesty of justice, social justice was serviced.
The criminal justice system is a fraud and run by clowns.
One of my lefty Facebook friends had a conniption, and considered that he was getting off “light.” She since took down her post.
I originally believed about 60% of what the media* was writing/saying about Chauvin. But then I followed the trial on Legal Insurrection. The man was railroaded; the trial was a travesty, a true travesty.
* I should’ve known better than to believe even a fraction of that, considering what liars and knaves the media are
You might recall a quote by Mencken that says “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Implicit in that quote is (a) politicians tell the truth about what they intend and (b) the elections are fair and honest. It’s unlikely that either of those assumptions hold for Minneapolis, Portland, California, or the Democratic Party as a whole.
I’m glad his mother defended him so strongly because so few have come out to question the idea that this was a racist murder–yet people were saying his mother should have apologized to the Floyd family. No matter what she said, it would not be enough for the people who think this police action was the crime of the century–worse than any murder ever. Supposing even that Chauvin did cause Floyd’s death and this was a case of excessive force, it was clearly unintentional and far from the worst case of police brutality. Reasonable doubt was quite a reasonable conclusion, but the jury disregarded the defense.
Chris. As to politicians lying; that applies to their first campaign. After one or more terms, their work product is evident. If they continue to be elected, that’s what the voters want.
For legal folks: AG Ellison said there was no racism in the death. So, do any of the charges require intent and, if so, was it addressed in the trial?
DNW: “When it comes to Portland or Minneapolis, it is not as if these polities don’t have an ideological history which they are proud of.” Well, Pride becometh before the fall, and recall that Pride is the first and most deadly of the sins. I personally am not distressed to see those two sanctimonious cities sink into the ground. I have spent time in both and came away shuddering at the evident smugness.
As far as I’m concerned, Chauvin’s entire trial was a parody, from the Judge that refused to grant a change of venue out of MSP, to seating of a juror who is (not was) a black bigot that had attended a black racist venue in another town months before, with video evidence to prove it, a man who had lied in defense questions regarding his suitability as a juror. Justice? Did not happen in the Chauvin trial, and the Democrat DOJ is not done with him either. It’s called “piling on”, and Americans reflexively do not like that.
What is kind of neat about all this is Karma: the black minority is seen as, and is in fact, racist, and the majority white backlash will have its way with reborn racism. As to black cultcha, you can p*ss on that.
12 1/2 years is the Minnesota guideline for second degree homicide with a clean record. 40 years is the maximum.
No one is going to mention that Saint Floyd once again, swallowed the drugs he had in order to hide them from the Police. That worked “last time. This time he was older and had boggy lungs from a bout of viral pneumonia (COVID-19?).
Drugs are a young person’s game. Older hearts, lungs, and/or vascular systems don’t do as well. Even if the EMS crew is there, they are not miracle workers. It is even a crap-shoot that they will guess correctly about what that white powder was. Narcan/Naloxone may help if they have enough on hand, or not.
I have never heard of patrol police having enough anti-psychotic meds to shut down a rage/run from a PCP-derivative or whatever might be in the stuff being sold as “bath salts”. Even if you survive without a heart attack or stroke, you might not survive the 9MM+P “sedatives” that are commonly used. You may be “crazy” and/or “stupid”, but it is not smart to expect that the First Responders are also.