Last summer, police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, an unarmed black man, and was subsequently sent to trial. The case sparked conversations about police brutality, and helped fuel demand for criminal justice reform. Derek Chauvin has since then been convicted. However, Derek Chauvin now has appealed multiple of his convictions. Chauvin is currently unrepresented by counsel. Chauvin has presented multiple issues with his trial and the court’s processes of conviction.
First, the court denied him a change of venue, something which he argues could have potentially limited the bias of the jury.
Second, and most importantly, Chauvin has been denied a public defender on the basis that his trial is over. The Police Officers Federation of Minnesota has also withdrawn support and no longer represents him, as he was convicted. Chauvin has since hired an attorney to appeal his conviction, giving him a better chance than when he planned to represent himself.
Appealing a court conviction involves creating a brief, a document including all of the errors in the trial. Derek Chauvin’s can be read here. Different states include different timelines within which the appeal needs to be filed. The appeal will review the decisions of the lower court and determine whether those decisions could have led to a wrongful conviction. The intention of the appeal is to reverse the ruling of the lower court. However, an appeal is distinct from a new trial. You can only introduce new details and question the proceedings of the trial.
Is any of this legal? According to Mr. Gabe Cook, who teaches a law class here at Barstow, the answer is maybe. “The [appeal] that seems most significant to me is the potential jury misconduct,” he stated. “The juror may not have been truthful in pre-trial questions about their involvement in Black Lives Matter protests.”
Before the trial began, attorneys used questions about Black Lives Matter to ensure impartiality in the trial process. The questions included whether potential jurors may have been involved in Black Lives Matter protests, and how they felt about Blue Lives Matter. Theoretically, a juror should have no alignment with either movement in order to ensure the amount of minimum bias possible.
The nine jurors originally selected included three white men, two black men, one Hispanic man, two white women, and one multiracial woman. However, during the actual trial the jury was never shown.
During the trial the jury was sequestered, meaning they were asked to leave home and stay in a secure location for some or all of the trial. For this trial, the jury was kept separate from the public, and was asked to stay away from any media related to the trial. Some questioned the ability for the jury to stay completely untouched by outside sources of information, however, the trial’s judge, Judge Cahill, maintained that the proceedings were fair.
