The sentencing hearing for Derek Chauvin went about as I expected today, in fact a little better than I had feared. Like most Americans who are not lawyers, I had never seen a full sentencing hearing before, and it was riveting. And the victim impact statements were both tragic as well as heart wrenching.

At the end, the judge slammed Derek Chauvin with a sentence of 22 1/2 years. I’m sure that it was a disappointment to the family, who wanted the maximum 30-40 years, but considering that the state sentencing guideline for a clean first offender is 12 years, the judge really took Chauvin behind the woodshed by almost doubling the sentence.

With that sentencing, the judge sent a loud and clear message to the entire law enforcement community that a new day is dawning. If you run around every day, randomly abusing the people that you are charged to serve and protect, the judicial and prosecutorial wings of the government aren’t just going to look the other way anymore. The world is changing.

But it’s not like that word wasn’t already out on the street, at least the law enforcement street. It’s not like the word wasn’t already out on Law Street. If you’re wired into the news all day the way I am, you’re seeing more and more stories about major metropolitan police departments being severely demoralized. Multiple departments are noting a resignation and early retirement rate that is well above normal.

More tellingly, many police forces are seeing a high turnover in such high profile units such as the SWAT teams, and the Rapid Response Units. These are high profile units because by their very nature they tend to be brought into high visibility situations, which brings them under greater scrutiny.

All of which begs the simple question of, why? If you’re a moral, sincere cop who takes his oath to serve and protect seriously, why are you not celebrating these changes? You have nothing to fear. The fact that plenty of cops, with plenty of good years left available to them on the force, especially in high profile units, are choosing to walk away, makes me want to think that those changes are something that will just take all of the fun out of their job.

And it’s only going to get worse. A large metropolitan police department earlier this week unveiled a new criteria in their police academy training, customer service training used by front facing companies like Starbucks to enhance the customer experience. The department is trying to instill an ethos for their officers to look more at their citizens as customers, and less like enemies. From where I’m sitting, the best form of de-escalation is to not let the situation escalate in the first place!

But from where I’m sitting, it looks like the die is cast. More and more departments are responding to public pressure and initiating reforms, and it will only continue. But with the judge’s ruling in Minneapolis today set the bar for police officers, and it’s not a low bar. Fuck up and you’ll pay a stiff penalty. And it seems to be being heard.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. I’d have liked to see an even longer sentence handed down but I suspect the judge is looking at the inevitable appeal process and since some of his rulings will come up for scrutiny throwing the proverbial kitchen sink at Chauvin was never going to be in the cards. Instead, the judge (I think) worked long and hard to provide a solid legal basis for adding to the sentencing recommendation suggested in the guidelines for a “first time” (first time even charged, much less convicted!) and added what he thought he could.

    I watched some of the post sentencing coverage, and didn’t see any discussion of a question that popped into my head after the judge issued his ruling. That question is what are the other cops who are facing trial later this year going to think, and more importantly do? If they thought the system would go easy on Chauvin I’ll bet their weekend is going to be a long one, filled with billable hours paid out to their lawyers. It will be interesting to see if some quiet discussions take place for guilty pleas in exchange for a sentence at or even a bit below the sentencing guidelines that would apply for “first time offenders” if convicted of the charges they face.

    I’m still undecided, but have to admit leaning towards prosecutors cutting such deals. At least as long as they do at least 80-90 percent of the time they’d have to do if convicted. That would reinforce the message of Chauvin’s sentence that times are a changing. And allow the country to focus on other cases in other places, as well as issues like voting rights which will be crucial next year because of the impact who gets to vote and has their votes counted will affect whether we can maintain the momentum for reform of policing and overall criminal justice reform.

    • I assume it was quite a stressful day for the other charged officers. If I remember, the Chauvin prosecutors are also involved in those other cases.

      As someone not knowledgeable of the law but who took some law classes as part of my degree, the questions I’d have for an actual legal expert are things like how important the across the board guilty verdict is for the other cases. I’d assume prosecutors are going to be able to bring evidence that supports the case that the officers were watching a murder, and cite testimony from the Chauvin case that shows that everyone else there knew it was a murder in progress, so those officers should have as well.

      I mean…there was nothing today to kale any of them feel better about things.

    • Denis, just ask yourself what kind of sentence would’ve been handed out in a reverse situation? Where the victim was a cop and the defendant was a Black youth who’d never been in trouble with the law but reacted because “he feared for his life?”
      There is NO WAY that defendant would get anything less than a solid 20 years in prison (likely with no chance of parole) because the system has, for too long, decided that “justice is blind unless there’s blue involved” and “everyone is equal under the law but police are more equal than others.”

  3. I wasn’t anxious…but perhaps I should have been. There was a California rape case a couple of years ago that everyone might remember where the verdict was guilty, and California law had a six year minimum sentence with leeway for a much higher sentence. The judge gave the guy three months, which was a horrible affront to the law. (Voters then forced him in the next election).

    If Chauvin had gotten that sort of sentence, it would have been horrible. Thank god that justice prevailed.

  4. The question you pose is exactly why I’d have liked to have seen a longer sentence. Too many people, usually non-white find themselves getting slammed with the maximum possible sentence even when they are first time offenders, and worse for non-violent crimes. I can easily understand why people, including non-white guys like me would be justified in being unhappy, or even pissed off that Chauvin got less than the maximum allowed by law. The crime was particularly heinous, and carried out in daylight in front of witnesses with plenty of filming of it taking place. Chauvin didn’t think any of that mattered. He thought he’d get away with it. While I don’t profess to know just what was in his mind I have no difficulty in jumping to the conclusion that he made a conscious choice to teach George Floyd and all those “uppity” (if you’re old enough you’ll truly get what I mean) people a lesson by making sure Floyd wound up in a body bag.

    So no, it’s NOT fair that in this case a reasoned application of law took place instead of the “lock em up and throw away the key” crap that takes place regularly around the country when some judge decides to make an example out of someone, or worse decides that some (poor and especially non-white ones) don’t deserve proper application of law via sentencing guidelines. Hell, lawmakers themselves got invovled in sentencing long ago with mandatory minimums and all that. But the point is that on a regular basis cases happen where there is no national spotlight being shined on the process from start to finish and people convicted of crimes who an objective observer would say deserve prison wind up getting WAY more time than a well-off and/or white person would get in the same situation.

    That should piss of all of us. So, we need to keep up public awareness and make the point you raise – which is that had Chauvin not been a white cop, and had slowly and deliberately crushed the life out of white person over a period of nine-plus minutes in full view of witnesses and plenty of cameras he’d have gotten the maximum possible sentence.

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