The Supreme Court on Monday said it would not hear the appeal filed by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of his conviction for the 2020 murder of George Floyd despite information in recently-released court documents that was not widely reported to the American public.
“Mr. Chauvin’s case shows the profound difficulties trial courts have to ensure a criminal defendant’s right to an impartial jury consistently when extreme cases arise,” Chauvin’s legal team told the Supreme Court.
“This was particularly true here when the jurors themselves had a vested interest in finding Mr. Chauvin guilty in order to avoid further rioting in the community in which they lived and the possible threat of physical harm to them or their families.”
Tucker Carlson in an episode last month cited court documents in questioning whether George Floyd was in fact murdered: “The answer is, well, no,” Carlson concluded.
In its ruling, the court did not specify why it declined to take up the appeal and did not indicate whether any justices would have heard the case.
Chauvin filed the appeal to the top court after a Minnesota appellate court upheld his 2021 murder conviction and rejected his request for a new trial. Chauvin had argued that jury bias and certain rulings by the presiding judge deprived him of his right to a fair trial under the Sixth Amendment.
In April 2021, Chauvin was found guilty by a 12-member on charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter. He was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison.
The nine-member Supreme Court receives somewhere around 7,000 case requests on average every year and typically only accepts between 90 and 150 of them.
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