On Monday, Derek Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric J. Nelson, argued that the ex-officer had acted sensibly when he knelt on late George Floyd for over nine minutes, making a desperate appeal to jurors also to consider the minutes before officers took Floyd to the ground as they start to argument whether to acquit or convict former officer Chauvin.

Moreover, Nelson said in his concluding argument that there was much more to the case than the moments captured on a video took by a cellphone. Nelson argued that there was at least sensible doubt about two vital issues: whether the actions of Chauvin allowed under the policies of the Minneapolis Police Department and whether he became the reason for Floyd’s death.

For three weeks the world has watched the Derek Chauvin Trial. Today, we heard the closing arguments.

Let’s take a moment to pray for the Floyd family and send them strength and love.#DerekChauvinTrial x #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/oNRORm76KX

— Martin Luther King III (@OfficialMLK3) April 19, 2021

Judges must believe that prosecutors proved their case outside a real doubt in order to convict. The prosecution made its concluding argument earlier on Monday, and another prosecutor will have a coincidental to confute the argument of Nelson later in the day, after which the twelve jurors who listened to twenty-one days of testimony will start to deliberate over a court verdict.

Final Moments of George Floyd

It must be common to convict officer Chauvin of any of the three charges he faces: second-degree manslaughter, second-degree, and third-degree murder. For almost three hours, Nelson focused on the decision-making of Chauvin and on what factors may cause George Floyd’s death. He stressed that the jury instructions say that no crime should consider if a police officer tried to justify in using reasonable force and that jurors should judge the justification by considering what another reasonable police officer in the same circumstances would believe to be essential.

Nelson argued that it required paying special attention to the moments before police officers put Floyd face down on the ground near his vehicle, when they tried to get a handcuffed Floyd into the car, which he opposed, saying he was confining. Prosecutors frequently noted the particular time – 9 minutes and 29 seconds – that Chauvin kneels down Floyd, but Nelson said that only a piece of evidence.

Nelson says that it is not the proper analysis because the nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds ignore the previous sixteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds. He adds that a reasonable police officer would actually consider the previous sixteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds.

Nelson argued during the trial that a group of eyewitnesses who were yelling for police officers to leave Floyd and check his pulse, in fact, taken the attention of the officers away from the declining health of Floyd. On Monday, he emphasized the moment in which experts said Floyd took his last breath, mentioning that at the same time, a bystander and an off-duty firefighter moved closer to Chauvin, asking the officer to remove his mace.

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