By entering the plea on Wednesday, now-former officer Thomas Lane avoided an upcoming trial on the more serious charge of aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
Chauvin pleaded guilty Dec. 15 to violating Floyd's civil rights. He will serve his federal sentence concurrently with his prison time from his state conviction in Floyd’s murder.
In the appeal filed in Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday, his lawyers raised 14 separate issues, including Judge Peter Cahill's decision to deny Chauvin's request to move the trial out of Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, because of the intense pretrial publicity.
J. Alexander Kueng said he tried to act as a conduit between Chauvin and then-officer Thomas Lane, who asked repeatedly whether George Floyd should be turned on his side. Kueng, though, admitted he never asked Chauvin to turn Floyd over himself but echoed Chauvin’s response to “just leave him.”
The three are charged with violating Floyd's civil rights during the arrest of the handcuffed Black man on a road outside a Minneapolis grocery store in May 2020, video of which sparked street protests against racism and police brutality around the world.
After a potential juror in the Kimberly Potter trial was struck after she said she did not understand English well enough to follow the case, some observers wondered why the court didn’t offer interpreters for jurors. Worse, some wondered if language was being used as a proxy for race.
The former Minneapolis Police officer was convicted of murder in April, a year after he kneeled on George Floyd's neck May 25, 2020, killing him outside a south Minneapolis convenience store. The incident, caught on video by a bystander, galvanized the U.S. police reform movement and set off a wave of protests.
The former Minneapolis Police officer was convicted of murder in April, a year after he kneeled on George Floyd's neck May 25, 2020, killing him outside a south Minneapolis convenience store. The incident, caught on video by a bystander, galvanized the U.S. police reform movement and set off a wave of protests.
The sentencing of the former Minneapolis Police officer comes more than a year after he was filmed kneeling on Floyd's neck outside a south Minneapolis convenience store, setting off a wave of protests — some of which devolved into riots —and prompting nationwide calls for policing reform.
