Death Penalty News

The inmate was charged with attempted murder and has been transferred to a different corrections facility in Tucson TUCSON, Ariz. — Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted in the killing of George Floyd, has returned to the prison where he was stabbed 22 times last month. The 47-year-old ex-cop’s lawyer told the Minneapolis Star Tribune Chauvin’s condition had improved to where he could be released from a Tucson, Ariz., hospital, but they remain “ very concerned” the federal penitentiary where he’s incarcerated will be unable to keep him safe.

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, was stabbed by another inmate Friday at a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.  Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement to CBS News: "I am sad to hear that Derek Chauvin was the target of violence. He was duly convicted of his crimes and, like any incarcerated individual, he should be able to serve his sentence without fear of retaliation or violence."

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) -- The white father and son who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery in a Georgia neighborhood each received a second life prison sentence Monday -- for committing federal hate crimes, months after getting their first for murder -- at a hearing that brought a close to more than two years of criminal proceedings. U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood handed down the sentences against Travis McMichael, 36, and his father, Greg McMichael, 66, reiterating the gravity of the February 2020 killing that shattered their Brunswick community. William "Roddie" Bryan, 52, who recorded cellphone video of the slaying, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. "A young man is dead. Ahmaud Arbery will be forever 25. And what happened, a jury found, happened because he's Black," Wood said. The McMichaels were previously sentenced to life without parole in state court for Arbery's murder and had asked the judge to divert them to a federal prison to serve their ...

569 seconds Three ex-Minneapolis policemen present at the death of George Floyd denied the unarmed black man of his civil rights, a jury has found. The officers were charged with showing "deliberate indifference to [Mr Floyd's] serious medical needs" during the attempted arrest in May 2020. Tou Thao, 36, J Alexander Kueng, 28, and Thomas Lane, 38, all testified in their own defence in the trial. They said they did not realise Mr Floyd needed medical care at the time. Violating a person's civil rights carries various punishments but prosecutors have recommended 25 years in federal prison for each man. Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who was filmed kneeling on Mr Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes, is currently serving a 22-and-a-half-year sentence. Chauvin was found guilty of Mr Floyd's murder last April. He also pleaded guilty in December to his own federal civil rights charges as part of a plea agreement. Video footage of the arrest shows Keung ...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — First it was a paramedic, testifying that the officers who restrained George Floyd didn't call in critical information as his ambulance rushed to the scene where Floyd would soon be pronounced dead. Then it was an off-duty firefighter, recounting her frustration that Floyd obviously “needed help and wasn't getting it.” Federal prosecutors building their case against three Minneapolis police officers on trial on charges accusing them of violating Floyd's civil rights turned Wednesday to a pair of witnesses who testified last year at Derek Chauvin's trial in which he was convicted of state murder and manslaughter charges. Genevieve Hansen, a Minneapolis firefighter, was on a walk when she came across Chauvin and Officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao. Hansen said she could see Floyd’s head being pressed onto the street under Chauvin's knee as other officers helped hold him down. “It was just alarming, the amount of people that wer...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Jury selection is scheduled to begin Thursday in the federal trial for three former Minneapolis police officers who are charged with violating George Floyd's constitutional rights while fellow Officer Derek Chauvin used his knee to pin the Black man to the street. J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority. Separately, they are charged in state court with aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter. Legal experts say the federal trial will be more complicated than the state trial, scheduled for June 13, because prosecutors in this case have the difficult task of proving the officers willfully violated Floyd’s constitutional rights — unreasonably seizing him and depriving him of liberty without due process. "Charged with what they didn’t do" “In the state case, they’re charged with what they did. That they aided and abetted Chauvin in some way. In the federa...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal count alleging he willfully deprived George Floyd of his rights during the May 25, 2020, arrest that led to the Black man's death. He also pleaded guilty to an unrelated but similar count stemming from the use of force against a then-14-year-old boy, who is also Black, in 2017. Here's what the guilty pleas mean for Chauvin, and for the three other officers charged in Floyd's death. WHAT DOES THE PLEA IN FLOYD'S CASE MEAN? Essentially, it means Chauvin has acknowledged for the first time that he violated Floyd's rights. Chauvin admitted he knew what he did to Floyd was wrong and that he had a “callous and wanton disregard” for Floyd’s life, the plea agreement said. It also said Chauvin “was aware that Mr. Floyd not only stopped resisting, but also stopped talking, stopped moving, stopped breathing, and lost consciousness and a pulse.” Floyd's family member...

The United States Supreme Court is facing, yet again, the controversial question of the death penalty. This time, the issue arises in a high-profile case coming out of the District of Massachusetts: the prosecution of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for participating, with his older brother Tamerlan (who died in a shootout with police), in the bombing at the Boston Marathon finish line that killed three people and injured more than 260 others. The jury recommended that the judge sentence him to death, which District Court Judge George O’Toole did. However, on July 31, 2020, the Court of Appeals, while upholding the guilty verdict, vacated the death penalty on the ground that Judge O’Toole had failed to sufficiently question the jurors about their knowledge of highly publicized aspects of the crime. As a result, Tsarnaev will spend the rest of his life in a federal “supermax” prison, probably the one in Florence, Colo. — provided that the Supreme Court does not step in to reverse the First Circuit a...

(CNN) - Three White men accused of chasing down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man out for a jog, are set to stand trial for murder in Georgia this week in a case thick with issues of racism, self-defense and cellphone video. Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael and their neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan Jr. are charged with malice and felony murder and have pleaded not guilty. They also face charges of aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. Jury selection in their state trial begins Monday. Arbery was fatally shot February 23, 2020, while out jogging in Brunswick, Georgia, in an incident partly captured on video. The McMichaels said they were conducting a citizen's arrest on Arbery, who they suspected of burglary, and that Travis McMichael shot him with a shotgun in self-defense. Bryan, who recorded the video, allegedly hit Arbery with his truck after he joined the McMichaels in chasing Arbery. Afte...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Four former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd's civil rights pleaded not guilty Tuesday to the federal charges against them. A federal grand jury indicted Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao in May for allegedly depriving Floyd of his rights while acting under government authority on May 25, 2020, as Floyd, 46, was held face-down, handcuffed and not resisting in a restraint that was captured on bystander video. His death led to worldwide protests and calls for change in policing. All four of the men appeared at the hearing remotely via videoconference. Chauvin appeared from a room in the state's maximum security prison, where he is serving a 22 1/2-year sentence for murder in Floyd's death. The other three men appeared remotely alongside their attorneys.  Prosecutors and attorneys for the former officers are also arguing their positions on about 40 pretrial motions Tuesday.  Among them, Kueng and Thao have asked...

CHICAGO (AP) — Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin has been sentenced to more than 22 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd. But it's not clear yet what Chauvin's experience will look like. AN UNUSUAL START Since his April conviction, Chauvin has been held at the state’s only maximum security prison, in Oak Park Heights. That’s unusual — people don’t typically go to a prison while waiting for sentencing. Chauvin is there for security reasons. Most state prisons have a unit to separate inmates from the general population for safety or security. But Oak Park Heights has what the Department of Corrections calls Minnesota's “most secure” unit to separate individuals from others in the prison for disciplinary or security reasons. HOW DOES THAT UNIT OPERATE? Photos provided by the state show an empty cell in that unit has white cinderblock walls, slim rectangular windows, a metal toilet and sink and a thin mattress on a fixed bedframe. Chauvin has been kept ...