Derek Chauvin, the police officer convicted of the murder of African-American George Floyd, finds himself again Tuesday before a judge, federal this time, in Minnesota.
He appears along with the three other agents involved in the drama that has shaken America.
These "double" prosecutions are permitted in the United States but relatively rare, and reflect the importance of this case at the heart of giant protests against racism and police violence across the United States.
Derek Chauvin, 45, has never admitted any wrong in the death of the black forty-something, on whose neck he remained kneeling for nearly ten minutes in May 2020 in Minneapolis.
He was found guilty and is already serving a sentence of 22 and a half years in prison handed down in June after an extraordinary trial in the state of Minnesota.
During the hearings, his lawyer hammered out that he had contented himself with following the procedures in force in the police force and that the death of George Floyd was due to health problems combined with the ingestion of drugs, without convincing the jurors .
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His three former colleagues, Tou Thao, Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, are to be tried in March for “complicity in murder” also by the Minnesota justice.
In parallel, the four men were indicted by the federal justice for "violation of the constitutional rights" of George Floyd.
It is in this component that they will be presented Tuesday, by video, to a federal judge.
At the start of the hearing, they all “pleaded not guilty”.
The local press had however reported that Derek Chauvin was negotiating a plea-guilty agreement in order to avoid a new trial.
At the end of the first, he had fueled speculation by telling the Floyd family: "There will be new information in the future, which I hope will be interesting and give you peace of mind."
