Derek Chauvin: Conviction, Stabbing, and New Trial Petition

Derek Chauvin is the former Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd on May 25, 2020, by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face-down on the pavement. Convicted in state court in April 2021 and later pleading guilty to federal civil rights charges, he is serving concurrent sentences of 22.5 years and 21 years at a federal prison in Big Spring, Texas. He survived a stabbing by another inmate in November 2023, and in November 2025 his attorneys filed a petition seeking to vacate his convictions and win a new trial.

What He Did to George Floyd

On the evening of May 25, 2020, a store clerk in Minneapolis called police after 46-year-old George Floyd allegedly attempted to use a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Chauvin and three other officers — Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng — responded to the scene at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue.¹

After Floyd, who was unarmed, told officers he was claustrophobic and asked not to be placed in the squad car, the officers pinned him face-down on the street. Chauvin put his knee on Floyd’s neck while Kueng and Lane held his legs and wrists. Bystander cellphone video captured Floyd saying “I can’t breathe” and calling for help. Chauvin kept his knee in place for nine minutes and 29 seconds, a figure prosecutors would later cite 22 times in closing arguments. He did not move it after Floyd became unresponsive, or after Kueng was unable to find a pulse. Paramedics took Floyd to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.¹²

All four officers were fired. The video circulated worldwide within hours, and Floyd’s death set off days of unrest in Minneapolis and St. Paul and mass protests across the globe against police brutality and racial injustice.³

The State Murder Conviction

Chauvin was charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. His trial ran from March 29 to April 15, 2021, in Hennepin County District Court before Judge Peter Cahill, with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison leading the prosecution and attorney Eric Nelson defending.⁴

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo testified that Chauvin “absolutely” violated department policy. Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker ruled Floyd’s death a homicide caused by “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression,” acknowledging Floyd’s enlarged heart and drug use as contributing factors but concluding the restraint “was just more than Mr. Floyd could take.” Pulmonologist Dr. Martin Tobin testified Floyd died from oxygen deprivation caused by the knee on his neck and back.⁵²

Nelson argued Floyd died from a cardiac arrhythmia brought on by heart disease and the fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, and that Chauvin’s use of force, however difficult to watch, was consistent with his training. The jury rejected that theory. On April 20, 2021, it found Chauvin guilty on all three counts.⁶

On June 25, 2021, Judge Cahill sentenced Chauvin to 270 months — 22.5 years — in state prison on the second-degree murder count, well above Minnesota’s guidelines figure of roughly 12.5 years. The court found four aggravating factors: Chauvin had abused a position of trust and authority, treated Floyd with particular cruelty, committed the offense while children were present, and acted as part of a group of three or more offenders.⁴⁷

The Federal Civil Rights Plea

On December 15, 2021, Chauvin pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to two counts of willfully depriving individuals of their civil rights. One count covered the killing of George Floyd. The second covered a 2017 incident involving a 14-year-old boy, John Pope Jr., whom Chauvin had restrained during a domestic assault call, holding him down with a knee for roughly 15 minutes.⁸⁹

At his federal sentencing on July 7, 2022, Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson sentenced Chauvin to 252 months (21 years) in federal prison, with credit for seven months already served. The federal sentence runs concurrently with the state sentence, meaning Chauvin serves them at the same time rather than back-to-back. He addressed Pope in court but did not apologize.¹⁰¹¹

His projected release date is November 2037.¹²

Appeals Rejected

The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld Chauvin’s murder conviction on April 17, 2023, rejecting defense arguments about pretrial publicity, venue, and the above-guidelines sentence.¹³ Chauvin then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, arguing jurors may have feared that an acquittal would trigger further protests and that the trial court had wrongly denied a change of venue. On November 20, 2023, the Court declined to hear the case without comment or a recorded vote.¹⁴

The 2023 Prison Stabbing

Four days after that Supreme Court denial, on November 24, 2023, Chauvin was stabbed 22 times with an improvised knife in the law library of the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona. Correctional officers used pepper spray to stop the attack and performed life-saving measures. Chauvin was hospitalized and reported to be in stable condition shortly afterward.¹⁵¹⁶

The attacker, John Turscak, was a 52-year-old former gang member and one-time FBI informant serving a 30-year racketeering sentence. According to charging documents, Turscak had been planning the assault for about a month because Chauvin was a “high-profile inmate,” and told investigators the Black Friday timing was symbolic. He was charged with attempted murder, assault with intent to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, and assault resulting in serious bodily injury, and pleaded not guilty in January 2024.¹⁷¹⁶

Chauvin was moved through the Oklahoma Federal Transfer Center and eventually to the Federal Correctional Institution in Big Spring, Texas, a low-security facility where he remains incarcerated.¹⁸

The November 2025 Petition for a New Trial

On November 20, 2025, attorney Gregory Joseph filed a 71-page petition for post-conviction relief in Hennepin County District Court on Chauvin’s behalf. The petition asks the court to vacate all three criminal convictions and order a new trial, or at minimum hold an evidentiary hearing.¹⁹

The petition’s claims include:

That prosecution medical experts gave false testimony about the cause of Floyd’s death and relied on video footage rather than autopsy findings.
That former Chief Arradondo and other department officials lied under oath when they testified that the knee-to-neck restraint was not part of Minneapolis Police Department training, contradicted, the petition says, by sworn statements from other officers who say the technique was consistent with policy.
That prosecutors engaged in misconduct in their use of video evidence.
That Judge Cahill gave the jury faulty instructions containing “misstatements of law.”
That the trial took place too soon after Floyd’s death, during a period Joseph characterized as “hysteria.”

A judge set January 4, 2026, as the deadline for the state to respond.¹⁹²⁰ Even a successful state petition would not release Chauvin, because his federal sentence stands independently.

Prior Complaints and the John Pope Incident

Chauvin spent more than 19 years with the Minneapolis Police Department and was the subject of at least 22 complaints or internal investigations, with only one resulting in any discipline. Since 2015, he was on record for kneeling on people’s necks or using chokeholds at least six times.²¹²²

The most significant of those prior incidents involved John Pope Jr. In September 2017, Chauvin and another officer responded to a domestic assault call at Pope’s home. According to a later lawsuit, an officer struck the 14-year-old in the head with a metal flashlight and choked him until he lost consciousness, and Pope regained consciousness to find Chauvin’s knee on his neck. When Pope asked Chauvin to move it, Chauvin responded, “Are you going to flounce around?” The suit alleged Chauvin held Pope down for about 15 minutes while the boy was subdued, not resisting, and crying that he could not breathe. Body-camera footage showed Pope’s mother asking Chauvin eight times to remove his knee.⁹ The City of Minneapolis later settled the civil lawsuit brought on Pope’s behalf for $7.5 million.²³

The Tax Fraud Case

In July 2020, weeks after being charged with Floyd’s murder, Chauvin and his then-wife Kellie were each charged with nine felony counts of tax evasion in Washington County District Court. The couple had underreported more than $464,000 in joint income earned between 2014 and 2019, including over $95,000 in cash payments from Chauvin’s off-duty security work at El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub. They filed no tax returns for 2016, 2017, or 2018.²⁴

Both pleaded guilty to two counts of aiding and abetting tax evasion. In March 2023, Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 13 months, to run concurrent with his existing sentences, and ordered to pay $37,868 in restitution. Kellie Chauvin received 20 days in jail, three years of probation, and the same restitution amount in May 2023. She had filed for divorce two days after Chauvin was charged with Floyd’s murder; the divorce was finalized in February 2021 under a sealed order.²⁵

What Happened to the Other Three Officers

All three of the other former Minneapolis officers involved in Floyd’s death were convicted in both federal and state court, and all received sentences shorter than Chauvin’s.

Thomas Lane, who held Floyd’s legs, was convicted federally of depriving Floyd of his right to be free from deliberate indifference to serious medical needs and sentenced to 2.5 years. He pleaded guilty in state court to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter and received a three-year state sentence served concurrently. He was released on August 20, 2024, and is on supervised release.²⁶²⁷
J. Alexander Kueng, who held Floyd’s back and torso, was convicted federally on two civil rights counts and sentenced to three years. He pleaded guilty in state court to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in October 2022 and received a 3.5-year state sentence served concurrently.²⁸²⁹
Tou Thao, who kept bystanders at a distance, was convicted federally on two civil rights counts and sentenced to 3.5 years. He was found guilty in state court of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter following a bench trial in May 2023 and received a four-year, nine-month state sentence served concurrently.²⁸³⁰

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