Ex-Police Officer Chauvin Sentenced to 22 1/2years Imprisonment for Floyd’s Murder

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 years 6 months in prison on Friday afternoon for the murder of George Floyd last May.

Handed down by Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill, the sentence was greater with what legal experts predicted.

“Determining the appropriate sentence, in any case, and in this case is a legal analysis. It’s applying the rule of law to the facts of an individual and specific case,” Cahill said from the Hennepin County courthouse just after 2:30 p.m., local time

What the case is, or what the sentence is not based on emotion word sympathy. At the same time I want to acknowledge, deep in tremendous pain, but all the families are feeling especially the Floyd family.”

The increased sentence comes after the judge in May agreed with prosecutors that there were aggravating factors when Chauvin fatally kneeled on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes that warranted a departure from the presumptive sentence length.

Cahill, in his earlier ruling, concluded that Chauvin abused his position of trust and authority” as a police officer and displayed “particular cruelty” when he knelt on Floyd’s neck during his arrest, an action that rendered Floyd unresponsive.

Floyd was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

On April 20, Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter as well as third-degree murder.

Since the criminal counts stemmed from one action — Chauvin killing Floyd — the sentence is based on only the second-degree murder conviction, the most serious crime.

Per state guidelines, the maximum sentence for unintentional murder in the second degree is 40 years, but because Chauvin has no previous criminal record, the presumptive sentence is 12.5 years, with an acceptable deviation range of 10.67 years to 15 years.