Chauvin Attorney to Newsmax: Trial Unfair, Should Have Been Moved

William Mohrman, the appeals attorney for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, said on Newsmax Friday that his client's convictions in the murder of George Floyd should be thrown out because he was denied a fair trial.

He cited high levels of pretrial publicity and extensive security that was needed because of fears of protesters in the case.

"The constitutional requirement of changing venue because of pervasive pretrial publicity is a requirement," said Mohrman, who did not represent Chauvin in his state or federal cases, on Newsmax's "National Report." "The trial has to be moved at least once to another venue.'

Mohrman presented his case Wednesday before a three-judge panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, arguing that the trial's judge should have moved the case out of Minneapolis.

Appeals Judge Peter Reyes said the court will rule on the arguments within 90 days. Chauvin was not present during the oral arguments but Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who has assembled the prosecution's team in the case, was in the front row, reports The Associated Press.

Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill, the presiding judge in the trial, sentenced Chauvin to 22 1/2 years in prison after jurors found him guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.

The former police officer later pleaded guilty in a separate federal civil rights case and was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison, which he is serving in Arizona, concurrently with the state sentence.

Mohrman said Friday that while it has been argued that Chauvin would have had trouble getting a jury that was not affected by the publicity surrounding the case, he believes that his client could have gotten a fair trial "anywhere outside of the Central Minneapolis-St. Paul core metro area," which was subjected to rioting after Floyd's death on Memorial Day, 2020.

"That was the problem with this case from a constitutional standpoint," he said. "You had actual physical pressure on the courthouse combined with the pretrial publicity."

And when the pressure on the courthouse is too much, "you cannot trust that the jurors are going to make a decision based on the evidence and arguments at the trial, as opposed to the news that they received prior to the trial or because of the concerns that they have for their safety," said Mohrman.

The safety issue, he added, "is the distinguishing feature in this case."

"Virtually every juror, the one seated and the ones who were not seated all expressed concerns for their safety with respect to being seated on this on this jury and having to render a decision," said Mohrman.

He said his team is seeking for the court to remand the trial to the district court level for a decision about where to move the trial so new procedures can begin.

Meanwhile, an attorney for the state argued that Chauvin got "one of the most transparent and thorough trials in our nation's history," and that the jury was "painstakingly selected" over two weeks before hearing the evidence.

But Mohrman said he argued his case based on a Supreme Court ruling that when pretrial publicity raises in a case to a certain level, jury examination can not be trusted to determine if jurors will be able to render a fair verdict.

"This isn't some unique argument that I'm making," he said. "This has happened in other federal trials in the United States, where federal courts have come and said no, there was just too too much publicity, where there was a carnival atmosphere at the courthouse or there was or the threats of violence were too bad."

Chauvin is "entitled to have a fair trial," Mohrman noted. "That's just a constitutional requirement."

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