Originally published 2021-04-21.
On 20 April 2021 a Hennepin County jury in Minneapolis found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on all three counts he faced over the death of George Floyd: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict after about ten hours of deliberation. Two months later, on 25 June 2021, Judge Peter Cahill sentenced him to 22.5 years.
The verdict was one of the most closely watched criminal trials in recent American history. It was rare for a police officer to be convicted of murder for a death on duty, and the case had already set off protests across the United States and around the world. Here is what the jury heard, how the sentence was decided and what happened afterwards.
What happened on 25 May 2020
George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was arrested outside the Cup Foods store in south Minneapolis after an employee suspected he had paid with a counterfeit $20 bill. Officers handcuffed him and pinned him face down on the street. Chauvin, a white officer with 19 years on the force, pressed his knee onto Floyd's neck while Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe.
Prosecutors told the jury the restraint lasted 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Early news reports had used a shorter figure of 8 minutes 46 seconds, which became a symbol at protests before the trial established the longer time. Floyd became unresponsive during the restraint and was pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center that evening. A bystander, 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, filmed the scene on her phone, and her video was seen by millions.
The charges and what the jury found
Chauvin, then 45, faced three separate counts under Minnesota law. Each describes a different degree of responsibility:
- Second-degree unintentional murder: causing a death while committing another felony, in this case third-degree assault. It carries a maximum of 40 years.
- Third-degree murder: causing a death through an eminently dangerous act showing a depraved mind, without regard for human life. Maximum 25 years.
- Second-degree manslaughter: causing a death through culpable negligence that creates an unreasonable risk. Maximum 10 years.
The jury convicted on all three. Some coverage at the time suggested Chauvin could face 75 years if the maximum terms were added together, but that was never realistic. Minnesota sentences for one victim's death are not stacked in that way, and the judge sentenced only on the most serious count.
The evidence at trial
Over three weeks the jury heard from 45 witnesses: 38 called by the prosecution and seven by the defence. They included bystanders, paramedics, police officers and medical experts, and jurors watched the incident from several angles, including bystander video and police body cameras.
Several pieces of testimony proved especially important:
- Darnella Frazier described Floyd as terrified and begging for his life.
- Dr Martin Tobin, a lung specialist, walked jurors through the footage and testified that Floyd died from a lack of oxygen caused by the way he was held, not from a drug overdose.
- Dr Andrew Baker, the county's chief medical examiner, stood by his ruling of homicide, citing cardiopulmonary arrest during restraint and neck compression.
- Police Chief Medaria Arradondo testified that continuing the restraint once Floyd stopped resisting broke department policy, training and ethics.
Closing for the state, prosecutor Steve Schleicher urged the jury to trust the video, telling them: "This wasn't policing; this was murder."
How the defence argued its case
Chauvin's lawyer, Eric Nelson, argued that his client had done what he was trained to do. The defence suggested Floyd's death was caused by heart disease, fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, and possibly exhaust fumes from a nearby police car. A retired forensic pathologist, Dr David Fowler, told the court he would have classified the death as undetermined rather than homicide.
Nelson also said the growing crowd of onlookers, some shouting at officers, had distracted Chauvin and made the situation feel more dangerous. Chauvin chose not to testify. The jury rejected the defence account and concluded that the restraint itself caused Floyd's death.
The sentence: why 22.5 years
For a first offender convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, Minnesota's guidelines recommended about 12.5 years. Judge Cahill went ten years above that after finding aggravating factors, including that Chauvin abused his position of authority and treated Floyd with particular cruelty. Under Minnesota rules, people usually serve about two-thirds of their sentence in prison and the rest on supervised release.
Chauvin later faced a separate federal case. On 15 December 2021 he pleaded guilty to violating Floyd's civil rights, and in July 2022 a federal judge sentenced him to 21 years, to be served at the same time as the state term. His state appeals failed: the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in April 2023, and the US Supreme Court declined to hear the case in November 2023. That same month he was reportedly stabbed by another inmate at the federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, and survived.
What happened to the other officers
Three other officers were at the scene: J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao. In February 2022 a federal jury convicted all three of civil rights violations. In the state cases, Lane and Kueng pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting manslaughter, and Thao was found guilty of the same charge by a judge in May 2023. Their prison terms ranged from about three to just under five years.
Reaction and the wider impact
Floyd's family had waited nearly a year for the verdict. His brother Terrence said he would stay up that night to celebrate, calling it a day of celebration. Earlier, Minneapolis had agreed to pay the family $27 million to settle their civil lawsuit.
The killing set off protests in more than 2,000 US cities and over 60 countries, among the largest demonstrations in American history, and a small number turned into rioting. It also led to scrutiny of the Minneapolis Police Department. In June 2023 the US Justice Department reported a pattern of excessive force and of disproportionate stops of Black and Native American people, and the city agreed to negotiate a court-enforced reform plan. Darnella Frazier received a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize board in 2021 for recording the video that made the case impossible to ignore.
Sources: Wikipedia, Trial of Derek Chauvin; Wikipedia, Murder of George Floyd; Axios, Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22.5 years (25 June 2021); original report via iHeartIntelligence.
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