Which is worse: a horrific sentence for a relatively minor crime, or being wrongly convicted of a crime? Horrible as a sentence of years in prison for, example, stealing a loaf of bread is? We suggest that wrongly being convicted is far, far worse. Either way, the long term penalty is one of the reasons that our English-derived, American justice system is supposed to be “innocent until proven guilty.” (Unlike the Continental system heralded by not just the monarchies as in Spain, Germany, and France, but adopted by the democratic systems which replaced the monarchies.

Although the protagonist of Les Miserables did commit a crime, the French justice system made his entire life miserable, just as the overall French government and its cruelties and tyranny made the general populace miserable.

We are in that situation today.

The George Floyd case tore America apart in 2020.

Cities burned while the national media crowned Floyd a martyr and Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin a murderer. But Chauvin just dropped a legal bombshell that could blow up his conviction. He sat in a federal prison cell in Texas, serving 22.5 years for second-degree murder in Floyd’s death. The case brought riots that cost billions in damage and turned “defund the police” into a national rallying cry for the Left.

On November 20, Chauvin’s attorney Gregory Joseph filed a 71-page petition in Hennepin County District Court demanding his client’s conviction be thrown out. The petition targets three explosive claims:

• The prosecutors relied on junk science about Floyd’s cause of death,

• Minneapolis police brass lied under oath about department training, and

• Judge Peter Cahill gave the jury faulty instructions that guaranteed a guilty verdict.

After five years in prison, Chauvin wants a new trial or, at minimum, an evidentiary hearing to examine what his lawyers call prosecutorial misconduct that destroyed his right to due process. The timing matters because five years removed from the chaos, Americans might finally be ready to hear evidence that got buried under the weight of burning buildings and media narratives.

Here’s what prosecutors didn’t want anyone focusing on during Chauvin’s trial: Dr. Andrew Baker, the Hennepin County Chief Medical Examiner who performed Floyd’s autopsy, found zero physical evidence of asphyxiation. Baker’s official autopsy listed Floyd’s cause of death as “cardiopulmonary arrest. Floyd had severe heart disease with at least one artery 75% blocked. His toxicology report showed fentanyl at 11 nanograms per milliliter in his blood — a level Baker himself testified was “pretty high” and could cause the pulmonary edema found in Floyd’s lungs, which weighed two to three times their normal weight. Floyd also had methamphetamine at 19 nanograms per milliliter in his system.

Baker’s notes included this bombshell: “If he were found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an O.D.” During Chauvin’s trial, three Minneapolis police supervisors took the stand and swore under oath that the knee-to-neck restraint Chauvin used on Floyd violated department policy. But since Chauvin’s conviction, 57 current and former Minneapolis police officers have signed sworn declarations stating the exact opposite — that the knee-to-neck restraint was part of their training and consistent with MPD policy.

Conservatives knew all along this wasn’t a trial seeking justice; it was a show trial designed to appease mobs burning down cities. Jurors weren’t sequestered despite Minneapolis being under siege with riots and threats of violence if Chauvin walked. The trial stayed in Hennepin County despite obvious jury pool contamination from months of media coverage painting Chauvin as a murderer before evidence was heard.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s office has until January 4, 2026 to respond to the petition. Chauvin isn’t eligible for release until 2037 or 2038 depending on good behavior, assuming he survives, which isn’t guaranteed after another inmate stabbed him 22 times in an Arizona federal lockup in 2023.

But if Chauvin gets a new trial away from the hysteria that dominated 2020, Americans might finally see the evidence prosecutors worked so hard to bury: that George Floyd was high on a potentially lethal drug cocktail, had severe heart disease, and died during a restraint that was department-approved training. The national media won’t like it, the Left will scream, and cities might burn again. But maybe it’s time Americans got to see what actually happened instead of what activists demanded they believe.

A false narrative, and politicians and activists who pushed and ran with that, made life miserable not just for Cauvin but for hundreds of thousands of people across the Fifty States. Why? Because government, not just in Michigan, is corrupt, vicious, and literally bows down to the street mob. Democracy is again showing its evil.

Precisely how are the States different from the France of Les Miserables? Please, please explain the legitimate and important ways.