In prosecuting the Chauvin case, Mr. Ellison assembled a team of outside lawyers to handle motions and the presentation of evidence and testimony, and the outcome was a rarity in America: Very few prosecutors have ever convicted a police officer of murder for killing on the job.
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The Prosecution Erin Eldridge, an assistant attorney general, works in the office's criminal division. Like Mr. Frank, she was involved in the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted in April of murdering George Floyd.
Attorney General Keith EllisonFormer Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced last week to 22 1/2 years for the murder of George Floyd. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who prosecuted the case, says there was no "magic number" he was hoping for in the sentence.
Keith Maurice Ellison (born August 4, 1963) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the 30th attorney general of Minnesota. A member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Ellison was the U.S. representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district from 2007 to 2019.
The prosecution team has 13 lawyers, said John Stiles, Ellison's spokesman, and a 14th acted as a jury consultant. Ellison, Frank and Eldridge are the only ones who work in the attorney general's office. The team also includes Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Joshua Larson and nine outside attorneys.
Michael O. FreemanMichael FreemanBornMichael Orville Freeman May 7, 1948 Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.Political partyDemocraticChildren5Parent(s)Orville Freeman Jane Shields18 more rows
University of Minnesota Law School1987–1990Wayne State University1986University of MinnesotaU of D Jesuit High School and AcademyKeith Ellison/Education
Keith Ellison (born February 6, 1984) is a former American football linebacker. He was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the sixth round of the 2006 NFL Draft. He played college football at Oregon State.
Detroit, MIKeith Ellison / Place of birth
Booking photo of Derek Chauvin on April 21, 2021. Minnesota Department of Corrections / via AP. Legal experts said it helped that the 12-member jury was diverse: four white women and two white men, three Black men and one Black woman, and two mixed-race women.
In fact, prosecutors made a point not to cast aspersions on all law enforcement during closing arguments. "This is not a prosecution of the police," prosecutor Steven Schleicher said. Policing is "a most noble profession," he said, and Chauvin's actions were "not policing.".
Nelson is the lone defense attorney, aided in court by a legal assistant who is also an attorney but who hasn't taken part in the courtroom arguments. The defense is funded through the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association’s legal defense fund.
Jonathan Simon, a professor at University of California Berkeley School of Law, noted that our culture associates women with “being more caretaking toward children, toward juveniles.”.
Keith Ellison is Minnesota’s Attorney General and a member of the DFL and appointed special prosecutor by Tim Walz that helped convict Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd on 4/20/2021.
Steven Schleicher is an experienced appellate attorney and trial lawyer before being called to public service in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin. Schleicher delivered the much of state’s evidence and arguments ultimately paying off with three guilty verdicts for the murder of George Floyd on Memorial Day in 2020.
St. Louis University School of Law professor Sue McGraugh said she sought to make a personal connection with jurors when she was a prosecutor. She said she’s rarely seen a case with so many prosecutors, and that it carries some risk. “It’s unusual because, as someone who has tried a lot of cases, you do want the jury to form some sort ...
Nelson is the lone defense attorney, aided in court by a legal assistant who is also an attorney but who hasn’t taken part in the courtroom arguments. The defense is funded through the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association’s legal defense fund.
Blackwell is a prominent Black civil rights attorney and one of the founders of the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers. Last year, he won a posthumous pardon for a Black man wrongly convicted of rape before the infamous Duluth lynchings of 1920.
Katyal led a successful effort to get a third-degree murder charge reinstated against Chauvin after the judge initially ruled it didn’t fit the circumstances. Stiles said in an email that about half of the outside attorneys are working full-time on the case.