Elon Musk has joined calls for President Trump to pardon ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murdering George Floyd in 2020. A Trump pardon would end Chauvin’s 20-year sentence on federal convictions for violating Floyd’s civil rights, but Trump does not have the power to commute Chauvin’s 22.5-year sentence on state murder charges.
Couldn’t he only be pardoned for the federal level conviction and not the state? Looking at his Wikipedia article, he has a 21 year fed sentence and a 22.5 state.
But yeah, this is a way to force violent protests and eventually martial law.
IIRC, Chauvin made the plea deal on federal charges so that he would do his time in the relative safety of a federal prison.
Which would mean that if he gets pardoned on federal charges, then he would have to serve out his remaining state time in a state pen… the very thing he wanted to avoid. He would probably be dead in under a month unless he spent the next decade or more in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day (like he did in his pre-trial detention).
Which would be a crying shame, of course…
Maybe it won’t be protests this time and just 30,000 people turning his body into something that doesn’t resemble a human.