The security level doesn’t automatically depend on the crime committed. It’s based on factors like whether the inmate is dangerous, whether other inmates may have it in for him, is the inmate likely to try to escape, whether the inmate is prepared to take counselling…
@Little_Nemo would be able to comment in more depth.
Does anybody know why Chauvin was attacked? I didnt see anything in the news about the motive or the identity of the attacker.
He may have been stabbed just because he owed a pack of cigarettes to another prisoner…that’s what happens in the movies, (which is where I’ve learned everything I know about prisons. 
)
Also,(and off topic, and deserving of its own thread):
I think that it’s a serious deficiency in the justice system that when a judge sentences someone to prison time, he does not specify what type of prison the convict will be sent to. There is a huge difference between minimum security and maximum. It’s totally different punishment, and the judge should take that into consideration.
Theres a 20 years
(Oops…I got timed out in the edit window) I meant to type:
There’s a difference between “20 years with no parole” and “20 years with a chance of being shanked”.
The motive clearly was to take out someone notorious. The shanker is a hero now.
They leave that to the Bureau of Prisons, which has more expertise in the matter.(or state equivalent)
In the federal system, the judge can make a recommendation, but it’s clear that the Bureau retains complete discretion.
I disagree. Judges don’t have experience in running prisons. It’s a highly specialised field. Corrections officials are the ones with the expertise, not judges.
The different levels of security are not meant to be forms of punishment, but to take into account factors relating to security, as the name implies. The most dangerous go to max security, less dangerous to lower levels of security.
Particularly for inmates serving long sentences, judges have no way of predicting the long-term behaviour of the inmate. Corrections officials have the detailed records for each inmate and are in the best position to judge, over time, what level of security is appropriate for each inmate.
As noted this is not a judge’s area of expertise.
But again, this prison was the result of the plea deal Chauvin reached. It was a concession to Chauvin and his legal team for accepting a 20-25 year federal sentence without a second lengthy trial at state expense (he ended up getting 21 - worse than his technically slightly-longer state conviction because of the stricter parole rules in the federal system). Which the judge accepted, so in that sense they agreed with where he was going to go.
This is true in the California state system, too. I only noted judges to make a specific recommendations for housing twice in my career. Both times, it was for especially egregious crimes and the recommendations were for housing at Pelican Bay.
Guess who might get pardoned if some people have their way.
Civil unrest would be the least of the resulting problems.
Yeah. The first would be the miscarriage of justice.
Wasn’t he already convicted on state charges?
Yes. trump can only pardon away the federal charges. Mind you, I do think that having both federal and state charges for the same thing is bogus.
This is a pretty good example of why it’s important to have both state and federal charges.
Not at all. The Bill of Rights protects us from Double Jeopardy, which is basically what this is. Sure the courts have ruled it is Okay, but IMHO they are wrong. Onc crime- one trial.
It was a lot more than one crime.
He killed one man, true?
That can still involve multiple different offenses in the process.
Sure, but it is still one crime- murder.
Chauvin was found guilty of three state charges — second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. His state prison term is 22.5 years.
Chauvin was convicted on two federal charges — violation of George Floyd’s civil rights, and violating a minor’s civil rights in 2017. The latter is unrelated to the Floyd case. Chauvin’s federal prison term is 20 years, running concurrently with his state term.
The upshot is that a federal pardon doesn’t change Chauvin’s circumstances. He remains in state prison to serve out the remainder of those 22.5 years.