MINNEAPOLIS — The judge in the Derek Chauvin murder trial has found there are "beyond a reasonable doubt" aggravating factors in the killing of George Floyd last year that clear the way to sentence the fired Minneapolis police officer to a term above state guidelines.
In a ruling filed Wednesday morning that hit on many of the major prosecution points that led to Chauvin's conviction, Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill cited four aggravating factors that will be considered when he sentences Chauvin on June 25.
Those factors are that Chauvin "abused a position of trust and authority" as a police officer, that he "treated George Floyd with particular cruelty," that children were present when Floyd was pinned to the pavement at 38th and Chicago for more than 9 minutes until he died, and that he committed the crime with "active participation" of others, namely three fellow officers.
Chauvin was convicted three weeks ago on charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Defense attorney Eric Nelson declined to comment about Cahill's rulings.
Regarding abuse of trust and authority, the judge cited Chauvin holding Floyd to the ground handcuffed in the prone positition for "an inordinate amount of time" while knowing of the danger of positional asphyxia.
"The prolonged use of this technique was particularly egregious in that George Floyd made it clear he was unable to breathe and expressed the view that he was dying as a result of the officers' restraint."
As far as his treatment of Floyd, Cahill explained, "The slow death of George Floyd occurring over approximately six minutes of his positional asphyxia was particularly cruel in that Mr. Floyd was begging for his life and obviously terrified by the knowledge that he was likely to die but during which the Defendant objectively remained indifferent to Mr. Floyd's pleas."
David Schultz, law professor at the University of Minnesota and a political science professor at Hamline University, said after reading Cahill's rulings that "given the fact of a cluster of aggravated factors, the only question now is how much will (Cahill) depart now."
Schultz said that having four aggravated factors "is a really high number. Theoretically, he would only need one to do a departure."
The professor also believes that Cahill listed the abuse of authority factor first and dedicated more than two pages to that section for a reason that goes beyond the sentencing.
"He wants to send a signal to other officers," Shultz said, " 'that if you want to do anything like this, look at what I did to Chauvin (at sentencing).' "
Not proven as an aggravating factor was that Floyd was "particularly vulnerable," because although he was handcuffed, he was able to resist arrest before he was placed in the prone position, nor was his drug intoxication a factor.
"Restraining George Floyd in the prone position with the weight of three police officers on him for a prolonged period did not create a vulnerability that was exploited to cause death," Cahill wrote. "It was the actual mechanism causing death."
Now that Cahill accepts the prosecution's contention that aggravating factors should be applied at sentencing, the maximum term the 45-year-old Chauvin could receive would be 30 years, according to Ted Sampsell-Jones, a professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law and an appellate criminal defense attorney. The first 20 years would be served in prison and the balance on supervised release, if Chauvin qualifies.
Chauvin had also been out on bond during his trial. But upon the jurors finding him guilty on April 20, Chauvin had his bond revoked, was handcuffed and taken to the Oak Park Heights Prison, where he remains until sentencing.
Taken in whole, Cahill's nearly 5½-page filing summed up much of the prosecution's case about what they alleged against Chauvin that led to the jury coming back with guilty pleas on all three counts after deliberating for parts of two days. Like the prosecution, he noted how Chauvin's restraint of Floyd was not part of police training and that asphyxiation was the cause of death.
The abuse of authority factor took up the largest portion of Cahill's filing, where he highlighted that Chauvin's "failure to render aid became particularly abusive after Mr. Floyd had passed out, and was still being restrained in the prone position, with the Defendant continuing to kneel on the back of Mr. Floyd's neck with one knee and on his back with another knee, for more than two and a half minutes after one of his fellow officers announced he was unable to detected a pulse."
In finding Chauvin treated Floyd with particular cruelty, the judge said without qualification that "Mr. Floyd had ... made it clear he was having trouble breathing." During the trial, the defense suggested multiple times that Floyd could have been misleading police when he repeatedly said, "I can't breathe" in order to avoid arrest.
Cahill's explanations throughout the ruling "pretty much mirrored what the prosecution had been presenting throughout the trial," Prof. Schultz said. "At the end of the day, it's clear that had he been the trier of fact, he would have reached the same conclusion as to a finding of guilt."
Fellow fired officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are scheduled to be tried Aug. 23 for aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd's death. All three are out on bond.
Cahill made clear in Wednesday's ruling that his referencing the "active participation" of Kueng, Lane and Thao constitutes "no finding (by the court) that they are 'offenders' subject to criminal liability."
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