Derek
Chauvin has been convicted of the murder of George Floyd and sentenced to over
22 years of jail time. He has appealed against the conviction and said the jury
trial should not have taken place in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Chauvin was
charged with second-degree manslaughter, third-degree murder, violation of
civil rights, made to register as a predatory offender and banned from owning
any firearms for life among other charges.

In May
2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man was murdered by a white police
officer Derek Chauvin who worked for the Minneapolis Police Department. Chauvin
arrested Floyd on suspicion of the victim using a counterfeit $20 bill.

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Floyd was
murdered in a gruesome manner by Chauvin kneeling on his neck for nine minutes
while being handcuffed and lying face down in the street during daytime. Two
other police officers assisted in restraining Floyd and another one prevented on lookers from intervening.

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He said
that he had no legal representative for appealing against the conviction
because the Police department’s obligation to pay for his representation ended
the moment he was sentenced, as per BBC.

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He was
given 90 days to appeal the sentence and has raised 14 issues about his prosecution
in his request for an appeal. He claims the judge abused his discretion by
denying Chauvin’s request of conducting trial outside Hennepin County and the
requests to postpone the trial or conduct a new one.

The incident
had sparked mass protests throughout the world, especially in the United States
of America. They brought forward the issues surrounding racism and police brutality.
Over 60 countries supported the Black Lives Matter movement and demonstrations
were held in over 2,000 cities.

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While most
of the protests remained peaceful, the protests in some cities turned into
riots. Several instances of violence were reported and curfew had to be imposed
in some of the cities.

It remains
to be seen whether Chauvin’s appeals will help his case or not but the chances
of his sentence being reduced seem slim.