Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney and prosecutor for Derek Chauvin, tells 60 Minutes that he feels “a little bad” for the cop who was sentenced to a maximum of 40 years in prison for third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
When he heard that his defendant was guilty, he felt sympathy for his client. He thinks that he deserves to be convicted, but in the end, “he’s a human being.”
As a defense attorney who has been working for 16 years, he tells sources that he tries to feel compassionate for those under him.point 255 |
He comments, “I’m not in any way wavering from my responsibility.point 67 | But I hope we never forget that people who are defendants in our criminal justice system, that they’re human beings.point 170 | They’re people.point 190 | I mean, George Floyd was a human being.point 222 |
And so I’m not going to ever forget that everybody in this process is a person.point 70 | ”point 77 | 1
He also tells CBS’s show that there is no evidence that Floyd’s death is a racist hate crime.point 278 |
With hate crimes, they are crimes that have “explicit motive and of bias.point 67 | . involving the use of racist language.point 100 | We don’t have any evidence that Derek Chauvin factored in George Floyd’s race as he did what he did.point 194 | ”point 201 | 1
The attorney was a former Congressman who was elected as state Attorney-General in previous years, and said that he did not want to secure the conviction until the jury came back with Chauvin’s verdict.
He brings up Rodney King’s case, and as a young lawyer at the time, he felt devastated with the jury’s decision at the time. He thinks to himself, “What are we missing? What haven’t we done?” Also adding that if there was no footage to begin with, they would be unsure how the conviction of Derek Chauvin would turn out.
Derek Chauvin was one of the main officers involved in this specific case, but they will be back in court this August to continue the conviction of the other officers involved. These names include J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao.
The murder trial had been speculated throughout the nation, waiting for the final verdict which had been announced recently. President Joe Biden even confided in the trial’s verdict, explaining that no one is “above the law” and after Floyd’s death, it is a “stain on the nation’s soul.”
Officials are now investigating a case that had been brought up from 2017 where Chauvin knelt on a young boy’s neck for almost 17 minutes, considering changing his sentence if they include this incident alongside the most recent trial.
He has never faced an charges over the arrest back in 2017.