President Joe Biden told reporters that the 22.5-year sentence handed down to former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was “appropriate.”
“I don’t know all the circumstances that were considered but it seems to me, that under the guidelines, that seems to be appropriate,” Biden said in the Oval Office, where he was meeting with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani.
Chauvin was sentenced on Friday for the murder of George Floyd.
When the jury in Chauvin’s case handed down its verdict in April, Biden called it a “step forward.”
“Let’s also be clear that such a verdict is also much too rare,” Biden said then. “For so many people, it seems like it took a unique and extraordinary convergence of factors: a brave young woman with a smartphone camera; a crowd that was traumatized — traumatized witnesses; a murder that lasts almost 10 minutes in broad daylight for, ultimately, the whole world to see; officers standing up and testifying against a fellow officer instead of just closing ranks, which should be commended; a jury who heard the evidence, carried out their civic duty in the midst of an extraordinary moment, under extraordinary pressure.”
Chauvin is expected to serve at least two-thirds of his sentence, or about 15 years. His attorneys are appealing the verdict.
Little Sympathy In Hollywood As Derek Chauvin Is Sentenced To 22 Years In Prison; See The Reactions
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