Since Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder, the three other former Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd’s killing have almost no chance of walking free, criminal justice experts told Insider.
Chauvin, 45, faces up to 40 years in prison after a jury on Tuesday found him guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter. His sentencing is scheduled for June 16.
Former officers Tou Thao, Thomas Lane, and J. Alexander Kueng are expected to go to trial in August on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.
“I’m almost 100% confident that likelihood of guilty pleas in all three cases has just gone up by a lot,” Mike Lawlor, associate professor at the University of New Haven, told Insider. “I think that the certainty of the conviction is extremely high and the possible penalties are also extremely high under the circumstances.”
Lawlor, a nationally recognized expert on criminal justice reform, is a former member of the Connecticut state legislature and worked as the undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning in the governor’s office there.
He believes “the ball is probably more in the prosecutor’s court” at this juncture, and that Thou, Lane, and Kueng are better off taking a plea deal than testing their luck at trial. But it’s an open question whether prosecutors are willing to offer the three men that option.
Chauvin was the most senior officer on the scene of Floyd’s killing, having worked for two decades at the department. Thao had been a full-time officer at the department since 2012. Kueng and Lane were rookies who Chauvin was training at the time.
“I think two of them were like in their first week or two on the job to start with, so obviously normally you’d expect them to get a much more lenient sentence than Chauvin would get,” Lawlor said. “What I’m sure prosecutors have to factor in is what the public reaction to that might be.”
“It just seems like it would be very reckless for any one of the three of them to actually go to trial given the possible outcomes,” he added.
A message left for state prosecutor Matthew Frank was not immediately returned. Attorneys representing Thao, Lane, and Kueng also didn’t immediately return Insider’s calls for comment.
Chauvin was originally in talks for a plea deal
Three days after Chauvin killed Floyd, as racial justice protesters flooded streets across the country and businesses burned in Minneapolis, Chauvin was in talks to plead guilty to third-degree murder, a charge that carries a sentence of more than 10 years.
The deal fell apart at the last minute when then-Attorney General Bill Barr rejected it. Barr had approval in that case because Chauvin wanted the federal government to promise he wouldn’t face civil rights charges if he pleaded guilty in state court.
“The reason is politically understandable,” Lawlor said. “It was reported that Bill Barr felt that it would be perceived as too lenient and the election was underway. So I think those kinds of factors affect how prosecutors think sometimes in terms of what the sentence should be.”
Lawlor believes the only circumstance in which the other three officers wouldn’t take a plea deal is a similar situation, where the defense and prosecution can’t to come to an agreement over sentencing.
“They were fired, what they did was wrong and unlawful. So they’re gonna get convicted. I think the only real question is what their sentence would be,” he said. “And I think a willingness to plead guilty and admit remorse, et cetera, would probably entitle them to a significant discount over what they might otherwise get.”
Serious discussions between defense and prosecution over plea agreements will probably happen after Chauvin’s sentencing, Lawlor said.
Requesting a change of venue or a bench trial
Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve is an associate professor of sociology at Brown University and the author of the book, Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s largest Court.
She told Insider it is clear that Thao, Kueng, and Lane will request their trial be moved out of Minneapolis. Chauvin’s defense made the same request but was denied.
“The Chauvin verdict, the guilty verdict, I think it’s cast an enormous pressure on the defense to try to find a supposedly impartial jury,” she said.
Public opinion about policing is turning, though not radically, with the availability of video footage from police killings and mass protests, Gonzalez Van Cleve said. She pointed out white Americans are becoming skeptical about the policing that Black and Latino people are subjected to in their neighborhoods.
“These officers are facing the potential reality that even if they move this case, this is going to be a really hard to seat a jury that supposedly doesn’t have an opinion on this case,” she said.
Gonzalez Van Cleve said the former officers may have a better chance of acquittal if they request a bench trial, pointing to the murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in Chicago.
McDonald, who was Black, was shot 16 times and killed by then-officer Jason Van Dyke. After the prosecution presented a dash cam video at trial, showing that McDonald was walking away when he was shot, Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a gun.
At the time, people were sure the three other Chicago police officers who were accused of attempting to cover up the shooting also would be convicted. But they requested a bench trial and were found not guilty.
“So the question is, why did that happen?” Gonzalez Van Cleve said. “Well, many judges are former prosecutors and prosecutors work hand in hand with law enforcement as their star witnesses and that kind of institutional interdependence makes many judges really rely on the testimony of officers and just kind of believe them full cloth,” she said.
Gonzalez Van Cleve said that the defendants and their attorneys will have to talk through whether they realistically have a shot a an acquittal with a jury anywhere in Minnesota.
“And so the question would be, is there an option for a bench trial that might be ‘more fair’ or more in their favor?” she said.
*story by Insider
