Judge denies Derek Chauvin’s bid for new trial over George Floyd murder, says ex-cop ‘failed’ to prove errors or misconduct

Hours before he sentenced Derek Chauvin to 22½ years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, a Minnesota judge nailed the conviction tight by rejecting the ex-cop’s request for a new trial.

In a terse order signed Thursday night, Judge Peter Cahill said the former Minneapolis police officer and his defense lawyer Eric J. Nelson provided no meaningful showing that a new trial was warranted.

“Defendant has failed to demonstrate that the court abused its discretion or committed error such that defendant was deprived of his constitutional right to a fair trial,” Cahill wrote.

“Defendant has failed to demonstrate that the state engaged in prosecutorial misconduct,” he continued.

The judge also denied Chauvin’s request for a special hearing to investigate possible issues with the jury.

He said the defense “failed to establish a prima facie case of juror misconduct or that a juror gave false testimony during voir dire.”

Chauvin’s request for a new trial from Cahill was a necessary first step on his expected path of appealing his conviction at a higher level.

Such requests are rarely granted by the judges who oversaw the underlying trials.

Chauvin, 45, was convicted in April of all three charges brought by the state, including the top charge of second-degree murder.

Jurors agreed with prosecutors that Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for about 9½ minutes on May 25, 2020 until the handcuffed Black man who pleaded “I can’t breathe” fell into cardiac arrest and died.

Bystander video of the shocking murder on a Minneapolis street corner sparked intense protests around the country and reenergized a movement to reform policing and acknowledge institutional racism.

Nelson brought the motion for a new trial with claims that the extraordinary media attention surrounding Floyd’s death had tainted the local jury pool to the point the trial should have been transferred to another jurisdiction.

He also accused juror Brandon Mitchell of not being forthright during the jury screening process because he didn’t mention his participation in a march last summer to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Prosecutors argued that Mitchell made his views clear in a jury questionnaire and during voir dire.