Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murder in the death of George Floyd, is seeking a new trial.
In a court filing submitted in Hennepin County Court in November, Chauvin’s lawyers claim his conviction should be vacated, citing inaccurate medical testimony, misrepresented police training and incorrect jury instructions as reasons for a new trial or evidentiary hearing, according to Fox News.
The court filing disputes the conclusions of four doctors who reviewed a medical report of Floyd’s cause of death; the filing argues that the doctors relied on video evidence from the incident to satisfy their findings, and states that Chauvin will use a panel of physicians to try to prove that the ones who testified at his 2021 trial used unorthodox methodologies “not generally accepted in the scientific community.”
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Chauvin’s lawyers are also disputing a claim made by supervising officers in his trial that the method he used to restrain Floyd — forcing a knee on his neck — was not in line with typical policing practices.
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According to the filing, 34 current and former Minneapolis police officers have said they were trained to use the knee tactic and that it was consistent with the department’s policy. The filing also argues that court proceedings contravened his right to due process.
Floyd died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin forced him to the ground by holding his knee over his neck for more than nine minutes, despite the Minnesota man’s protests that he could not breathe. Chauvin and several other officers had been called to a scene where Floyd was accused of attempting to purchase cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill.
Chauvin was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
Floyd’s arrest and death, which a bystander captured on cellphone video, sparked mass protests nationwide that called for an end to racial inequality and police mistreatment of Black people.
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Five years after Floyd’s death, activists had hoped that the worldwide protests sparked by Floyd’s murder would lead to national police reform with a focus on racial justice.
Under then-president Joe Biden, the U.S. Justice Department had aggressively pushed for oversight of local police it had accused of widespread abuses. But the Trump administration moved in May to cancel settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville that called for an overhaul of their police departments following Floyd’s murder and the killing of Breonna Taylor.
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Trump has also declared an end to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within the federal government, and his administration is using federal funds as leverage to force local governments, universities and public school districts to do the same. Republican-led states have accelerated their efforts to stamp out DEI initiatives.
These endeavours coincide with a clampdown on immigration in the U.S. that has seen President Donald Trump’s administration targeting people from countries including Somalia, Afghanistan, and El Salvador. This week, Trump paused immigration applications from 19 countries to the U.S., under the pretence of threats to public safety.
The move came in the wake of the shooting of two National Guards in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 26 that killed Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and wounded Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. An Afghan man has been charged in connection with the shooting.
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— With files from The Associated Press
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