Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer responsible for the death of George Floyd, will not face a reinstated third-degree murder charge when he goes on trial next month, the New York Daily News reports.
"Prosecutors sought to add back the lesser charge after a precedent-setting Feb. 1 ruling by the Minnesota Court of Appeals decided third-degree murder could apply when deadly force is directed at only a single person and not eminently dangerous to others," the Daily News reports. "The Feb. 1 ruling upheld the third-degree murder conviction of Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor in the 2017 fatal shooting of 40-year-old Justine Ruszczyk Damond."
Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill ruled on Thursday that the split ruling in the Noor case is not true precedent.
"This court believes its earlier decision in the (order) dismissing the charge of murder in the third degree was correct and nothing in the majority opinion of Noor persuades the court otherwise," Judge Cahill wrote.
Chauvin's motion to dismiss the third-degree murder charge because it concluded such a charge could "be sustained only in situations in which the defendant's actions…were not specifically directed at the particular person whose death occurred.
Prosecutors also wanted to charge the three other former Minneapolis police officers charged in Floyd's death with aiding and abetting third-degree murder, but that was also denied by judge based on the same reasoning as with Chauvin.
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that then-Attorney General Bill Barr intervened in the case.
"It was three days after George Floyd died in police custody last May, and businesses in the Twin Cities were on fire. Police officers were shooting rubber bullets and tear gas to hold back protesters, their anger fueled by a cellphone video of Mr. Floyd, a Black man, gasping for breath under the knee of a white officer," The Times reported. "As soldiers prepared to take to the streets, the officer, Derek Chauvin, believed that the case against him was so devastating that he agreed to plead guilty to third-degree murder. As part of the deal, officials now say, he was willing to go to prison for more than 10 years. Local officials, scrambling to end the community's swelling anger, scheduled a news conference to announce the deal."
"But at the last minute, according to new details laid out by three law enforcement officials, the deal fell apart after William P. Barr, the attorney general at the time, rejected the arrangement. The deal was contingent on the federal government's approval because Mr. Chauvin, who had asked to serve his time in a federal prison, wanted assurance he would not face federal civil rights charges," the newspaper reported. "An official said Mr. Barr worried that a plea deal, so early in the process and before a full investigation had concluded, would be perceived as too lenient by the growing number of protesters across America. At the same time, Mr. Barr wanted to allow state officials, who were about to take over the case from the county prosecutor who has had tense relations with Minneapolis's Black community, to make their own decisions about how to proceed."
