Chauvin pleads guilty to violating Floyd’s rights
MINNEAPOLIS • Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pleaded guilty on Wednesday in a federal court to charges he violated George Floyd’s civil rights, likely extending his prison sentence by several years after his earlier conviction for the Black man’s murder.
Chauvin, 45, appeared in the U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minn., in an orange jumpsuit to waive his right to a trial by changing his plea to guilty in an agreement with prosecutors, precluding the risk of a sentence of up to life in prison had he gone to trial.
A state judge had already sentenced Chauvin to 22-1/2 years in prison in June after a jury convicted him for the 2020 murder of Floyd, and he has since been held in solitary confinement in a maximum-security Minnesota prison. In Minnesota, prisoners are eligible for supervised release after completing two thirds of their sentence.
Chauvin, who is white, was seen in videos recorded by horrified onlookers kneeling on the handcuffed Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes in a brutal arrest on a Minneapolis street corner on May 25, 2020.
The killing ignited one of the largest protest movements seen in the United States.
Chauvin’s April conviction in state court on charges of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter was seen by many as a landmark rebuke of the disproportionate use of police force against Black Americans.
Chauvin admitted Wednesday that in his role as a police officer he breached Floyd’s constitutional right to be free from “unreasonable seizure” and to not face excessive force.
Federal prosecutors told the court that the sentencing guidelines call for Chauvin to spend 20-25 years in prison, though they noted that the court could rule for a harsher sentence, up to life in prison.
They said that under the plea agreement prosecutors would ask the court for a 25-year sentence to run concurrently with the state one, meaning Chauvin would extend his current prison term by several years.
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin listens to a statement to the judge as he awaits his sentencing for murder in the death of George Floyd in June.