Chauvin Trial Provides Perfect Classroom for Criminal Justice Students

(KNSI) – The most-watched and publicized trial in Minnesota’s history is affecting future students studying for a career in the field of law.

Derek Chauvin is charged with second and third-degree murder and manslaughter for Geroge Floyd’s death in May of 2020.

Lawyer and St. Cloud State University Criminal Law Profesor John Baker says he’s using the case as a teaching tool.

“For my students, the Chauvin trial couldn’t be a better classroom. I teach this every semester so, we’re always learning criminal law and Criminal Procedure, but now we get to apply directly what we’re learning to what is going on with the Chauvin trial.”

Many of his students will go on to become police officers, probation officers, and lawyers.

Baker says the case hasn’t changed much about how he teaches criminal procedures, but it has on other campuses.

“George Floyd has just amplified it for us. I know some of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities have said we’re doing a whole different thing because of George Floyd. For us, we really have been looking at this for a long time.”

He says if there is a conviction, it will set a new standard for justice.

“The biggest precedence is going to be if he is found guilty. It’s holding a law enforcement officer responsible for his actions, which rarely ever happens. That’s going to be the big precedent.”

Baker says if there is a conviction on the reinstated murder charge, it will guide future cases against police or other individuals.

“The legal precedent is if he’s convicted of third-degree murder. It will be the second case with the theory that the Court of Appeals has applied that third-degree murder can be applied to a single person.”

Traditionally third-degree murder is a charge used in cases involving someone selling drugs that causes an overdose death or shots indiscriminately into a crowd leading to death.

Chauvin could become the second officer in Minnesota convicted of murder while in the line of duty.

Mohamed Noor was convicted of shooting and killing Justine Damond-Ruszczyk in July 2017.

A jury found him guilty of third-degree murder and manslaughter. Noor was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.

Minnesota statutes define third-degree murder as:

609.195 MURDER IN THE THIRD DEGREE.
(a) Whoever, without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life, is guilty of murder in the third degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 25 years.

(b) Whoever, without intent to cause death, proximately causes 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, is guilty of murder in the third degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 25 years or to payment of a fine of not more than $40,000, or both.

___