*Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison raised a few eyebrows Sunday night by comments made about Derek Chauvin during a “60 Minutes” interview.
Ellison said that after the guilty verdict, he “felt a little bad” for the former Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd.
“I spent 16 years as a criminal defense lawyer, so I will say I felt a little bad for the defendant,” Ellison said during an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday evening. “I think he deserved to be convicted, but he’s a human being.”
Journalist Scott Pelley, who was interviewing the former Democratic congressman, told Ellison he was not expecting to hear “a note of compassion” from the state’s top prosecutor regarding Chauvin, who was captured on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as Floyd told him he couldn’t breathe 27 times during an arrest last summer.
“I’m not in any way wavering from my responsibility,” Ellison said. “But I hope we never forget that people who are defendants in our criminal justice system … that they’re human beings, they’re people. I mean, George Floyd was a human being. So I’m not going to ever forget that everybody in this process is a person.”
Watch below:
“He deserved to be convicted,” Minnesota AG Keith Ellison says about Derek Chauvin, found guilty last week of murdering George Floyd. “But I hope we never forget that … everybody in this process is a person,” including the defendant and the victim. https://t.co/Qwq2hXNrQ1 pic.twitter.com/YEyfYsGDJc
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 25, 2021
Watch the entire “60 Minutes” segment “The Prosecutors” below. Scott Pelley speaks with Ellison and the prosecutorial team that convicted Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.
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