Keith Ellison Discusses Derek Chauvin Murder Trial at Harvard Law Event

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison discussed his experience serving as a special prosecutor in the trial of Derek Chauvin — the police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd — during a talk on Monday at the Harvard Law School.

The event, titled “Justice in the Criminal Legal System,” was held virtually over Zoom. HLS professor Intisar A. Rabb — who serves as faculty director of the Program in Islamic Law — moderated the talk.

Ellison served as a member of Congress for 12 years before becoming attorney general, gaining national prominence after he ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee. In 2020, Ellison accepted a request from Minn. Gov. Tim Walz to lead the prosecution against Chauvin.

Ellison told an audience of students and faculty members that his team of lawyers working the Chauvin case had to find witnesses with first-hand accounts despite the viral videos that showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes.

“We actually had to treat the video as secondary, supplementary and we had to really just build a case based on the witnesses who were there,” Ellison said.

Though Floyd’s murder sparked a national reckoning on race and policing, Ellison noted that the number of people who have been killed by law enforcement officers has only increased since 2020.

“I never was under the illusion that winning this case was going to change police brutality cases,” Ellison said. “I knew it wasn’t, but I did hope that as a product, Congress would pick up the mantle and we could have some system-wide change.”

“But I’ll tell you this: At this point, the system has not yet responded in a way that would protect people,” he added.

Ellison also told attendees that he has been thinking about criminal justice issues since he first became interested in pursuing a career as a lawyer.

“I believe that criminal justice is really where you find out the true measure of how just any society is,” he said.

Ellison said he became involved with police accountability work while he was still a student at the University of Minnesota Law School. While Ellison was in school, a group of Black students were brutalized by police officers who responded to the wrong location following a noise complaint.

“That is when I, as a student, got involved in the campaign to try to protect them,” Ellison said. “We organized a lot of rallies and stuff.”

During the event, Ellison reflected on the lack of systemic change since the summer of 2020.

“People look at George Floyd as a moment in time,” he said.

Ellison compared the outrage around police brutality to calls for political change after mass shootings in the U.S.

“Anytime there’s a spectacular shooting incident, like a mass shooting incident, there’s a lot of protests, it dies down, and then nothing changes,” he said. “Same thing with policing. The people who want the status quo know that the moment will pass, and then we’re just going to go back to our friends.”

“We’ve got to create a different norm, and it’s going to start with consequences,” Ellison added.