Chauvin Doesn't Get the Answer He Wanted From SCOTUS

UPDATE Nov 20, 2023 12:25 PM CST

Derek Chauvin's latest hopes for a conviction appeal withered on Monday, with the Supreme Court refusing to hear his case without comment. Chauvin took his appeal of his second-degree murder conviction in the death of George Floyd to the SCOTUS last month after the Minnesota Supreme Court declined to hear the case, reports the Guardian. In his appeal, Chauvin argued he was deprived of his right to a fair trial due to it being held in Minneapolis after a massive amount of pretrial publicity. The Star Tribune notes Chauvin has filed many unsuccessful appeals. Last week he filed a new motion to vacate his federal civil rights conviction, arguing he would not have pleaded guilty in his that case if his then-attorney had told him a pathologist was willing to testify that Floyd's death wasn't caused by Chauvin.

Jul 20, 2023 6:23 AM CDT

Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin will ask the US Supreme Court to review his conviction for second-degree murder in the killing of George Floyd, now that the Minnesota Supreme Court has declined to hear the case, his attorney said Wednesday, per the AP. The state's highest court without comment denied Chauvin's petition in a one-page order dated Tuesday, letting Chauvin's conviction and 22 1/2-year sentence stand. Chauvin faces long odds at the US Supreme Court, which hears only about 100 to 150 appeals of the more than 7,000 cases it is asked to review every year.

Chauvin's attorney, William Mohrmann, told the AP that they were "obviously disappointed" in the state court decision. He said the most significant issue on which they appealed was whether holding the proceedings in Minneapolis in 2021 deprived Chauvin of his right to a fair trial due to "the most amount of pretrial publicity in history" and concerns for violence in the event of an acquittal. Riots "led the jurors to all express concerns for their safety in the event they acquitted Mr. Chauvin—safety concerns which were fully evidenced by surrounding the courthouse in barbed wire and National Guard troops during the trial and deploying the National Guard throughout Minneapolis prior to jury deliberations."

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Mohrmann asked the Minnesota Supreme Court in May to hear the case after the Minnesota Court of Appeals in April rejected his arguments that he had been denied a fair trial. The Minnesota attorney general's office, in a response last month, asked the Supreme Court to let that ruling stand instead. Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement that the state Supreme Court's denial of review "means that the Court of Appeals was correct in finding that his trial was properly conducted and he was properly convicted under law. This development definitively holds Chauvin accountable and closes this chapter of the murder of George Floyd." (More Derek Chauvin stories.)