There’s an interesting op-ed in the Boston Globe by Laurence Tribe and Albert Goins. I’m not familiar with Goins, although the story notes that he’s a criminal lawyer with extensive experience dealing with police misconduct in Minnesota. Tribe is one of the nation’s best-known legal scholars.
They are very worried that the third-degree murder charge against Chauvin is likely to result in the dismissal of that charge by the judge. Mineesota’s third-degree murder charge, according to Tribe and Goins, is:
That is, the charge is explicitly designed to deal with situations where the deadly force was not intentionally aimed at the particular person who died. Because Chauvin had his knee directly on Floyd’s neck, it is clear that Chauvin was aiming his actions directly at Floyd, making a third-degree murder charge inappropriate under the statue.
Tribe and Goins further note that:
They believe that a second-degree felony murder charge is much more appropriate in this situation, and they call for the Minnesota governor to replace the local prosecutor with the State Attorney General in the case.