Officer Arrested and Charged in Floyd Case

The now ex- policemen Derek Chauvin, the man seen kneeling on the neck of  George Floyd has been arrested.

Floyd died, which lead to national wide outrage. Chauvin was arrested and charged with 3rd degree murder. Only three states have this category of murder, with Minnesota being one of them.

Under 3rd degree murder, Chauvin could face the maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.



Minnesota law originally defined third-degree murder solely as depraved-heart murder ("without intent to effect the death of any person, causing the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life"). In 1987, an additional drug-related provision ("without intent to cause death, proximately caus[ing] the death of a human being by, directly or indirectly, unlawfully selling, giving away, bartering, delivering, exchanging, distributing, or administering a controlled substance classified in Schedule I or II") was added to the definition of third-degree murder. Up until the early 2000s, prosecutions under that provision were rare, but they began to rise in the 2010s. Some reports linked this increase in prosecutions to the opioid epidemic in the United States.

Minnesota law also defines the crime of third-degree murder of an unborn child, with the same elements of depraved mind and lack of intent to kill distinguishing it from first- or second-degree murder of an unborn child. Both third-degree murder and third-degree murder of an unborn child are punishable by a maximum of 25 years' imprisonment.

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