Former police officer Derek Chauvin will trade his solitary confinement in Minnesota’s only maximum-security prison for an extended stay in a federal prison. Despite his notoriety for the murder of George Floyd, he should probably be safer there.
A US federal court in Saint Paul, Minnesota, sentenced Chauvin to 21 years in prison after the defendant pleaded guilty to violating Floyd’s civil rights. The agonizing death of George Floyd, who was struggling for air, triggered global protests against police violence and racism in 2020.
No US citizen may suffer “disproportionate force at the hands of a police officer.”
The white ex-policeman had already been sentenced to 22 years and six months in prison in April 2021 for second-degree murder, among other things, and is already serving this sentence. In parallel with the Minnesota judiciary, the federal judiciary had brought charges against Chauvin, as is possible in the United States. She accused the ex-cop of violating Floyd’s constitutional right not to suffer “disproportionate force from a police officer.” Chauvin pleaded guilty to this, and the verdict was now also passed in this case.
On the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, Americans across the country demonstrated again against police violence
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The two prison sentences can be served at the same time under US law, but Chauvin will be transferred to a federal prison. He could have been paroled sooner in the Minnesota prison system than in the federal prison system. Now, despite the nominally shorter sentence, Chauvin will have to spend almost three more years behind bars.
Imprisoned police officers live dangerously
However, his guilty plea avoided life imprisonment – and he can hope for a slightly safer environment with a little more freedom. He is currently being held in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison for his own safety. On average, he is allowed to leave his 12 square meter cell for one hour a day to move around.
The memory of the African American George Floyd is unbroken
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Had Chauvin been housed in a Minnesota general prison, he could have encountered inmates he arrested or screened as a Minneapolis police officer, says Rachel Moran, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. While he couldn’t entirely escape his notoriety in a federal prison, he said he was unlikely to encounter inmates who harbored personal grudges against him.
rb/ack (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)
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