‘Good faith error’: Chauvin requests probation for Floyd killing

Prosecutors ask for 30 years in prison after judge ruled aggravating factors allow for a harsher sentence.

A lawyer for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has asked a judge for probation or a below-guidelines prison term when sentencing his client, who was convicted in April of murder and manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd. In a motion filed with Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill on Wednesday, lawyer Eric Nelson said Chauvin’s actions in pinning Floyd to the pavement during an arrest in May last year was “best described as an error made in good faith” based on his training. “Mr. Chauvin asks the Court to look beyond its findings, to his background, his lack of criminal history, his amenability to probation, to the unusual facts of this case, and to his being a product of a ‘broken’ system,” Nelson wrote.