The office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is asking the public to submit community impact statements prior to the sentencing of former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin.
Chauvin, who in April was convicted of murder in the May 2020 death of George Floyd, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday and could face decades in prison.
Ellison’s office will collect community impact statements — through a form on its website — which will be provided to the court and defense counsel and may become part of the public record.
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Derek Chauvin is scheduled to be sentenced Friday
(Minnesota Department of Corrections)
A community impact statement is essentially a description submitted by people who claim they were adversely affected by a specific crime.
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On the form, respondents are asked how “Mr. Chauvin’s offenses have had a social or economic impact on your life, family, community, etc.”
“It is not common to facilitate the submission of community-impact statements in this way, but this is not a common case,” a spokesman for Ellison’s office told FOX 9 of Minneapolis.
According to FOX 9, the online portal was first set up June 9. The submission deadline is Thursday.
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In April, Chauvin was convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter after video showed him with his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes.
Three other former Minneapolis police officers await trial in connection with the case.
Ellison, 57, a former Minnesota state lawmaker and congressman who has been the state’s attorney general since January 2019, led the prosecution during the trial.
