Former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin has been sentenced to 22 and half years in prison in the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
Prosecutors had asked for a 30-year sentence, and Chauvin’s attorney asked for probation and time served. Chauvin was convicted in April of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
Technically, Chauvin faced up to 40 years in prison for second-degree murder, up to 25 years for third-degree murder, and up to 10 years for manslaughter.
However, Chauvin has no prior criminal record. State guidelines say that for such a person, the presumptive sentence for both second-degree and third-degree murder is 12 1/2 years. The judge was given the discretion to hand down a sentence between 10 years and eight months and 15 years for each.
Second-degree manslaughter carries a presumptive sentence of four years for someone with no record, according to the guidelines. The judge’s discretion ranged from three years and five months to four years and eight months.
