Mr. Lane, 39, who pleaded guilty in May to second-degree murder, is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for violating Mr. Floyd’s civil rights and will serve the three-year sentence concurrently. . As part of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped a more serious charge of accessory to second-degree murder. Judge Peter A. Cahill, who has overseen the trial of all four officers charged in Mr. Floyd’s death, accepted the plea agreement in Hennepin County District Court on Wednesday. Mr. Lane, who has been in a federal prison in Colorado since last month, attended the mock hearing wearing a gray prison jumpsuit. Given the opportunity to address the court, Mr. Lane declined.
Understand the trials that have arisen from the death of George Floyd
Card 1 of 5 Four defendants. Along with Mr. Chauvin, three other officers were charged with playing a role in Mr. Floyd’s death. Tou Thao, a veteran officer who was Mr. Chauvin’s partner, was holding back a group of bystanders. J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane helped locate Mr. Floyd. The four men have been involved in several proceedings. Mr. Chauvin’s criminal trial. In April 2021, a jury in state court found Mr. Chauvin, who is white, guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. In June 2021, he was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison. appealed against his conviction. According to the plea agreement, Mr. Lane admitted that he knew the dangers of handcuffing a prone person from his “experience and training” as a police officer. Mr. Lane “was able to hear Mr. Floyd repeat that he could not breathe several times during the restraint,” the agreement states. “The defendant was also aware that Mr. Floyd became silent as the restraint continued, eventually had no pulse and appeared to be unconscious.” Mr Lane knew from his training that the officers “should have placed Mr Floyd in the lateral recovery position to facilitate breathing”. Despite this, the agreement says, he “continued to intentionally assist in containment by knowingly creating and assuming an unreasonable risk of causing death and in fact caused the death of George Floyd.” Mr. Lane was one of four officers who responded on May 25, 2020, to a call by a store clerk who accused Mr. Floyd of using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Mr. Floyd was then handcuffed and held face down. One of the officers, Derek Chauvin, pressed his knee into Mr. Floyd’s neck as Mr. Lane held his legs, according to the plea agreement. Mr Chauvin was convicted last year of murder and sentenced to 22.5 years in prison. Mr. Lane’s three-year state sentence will run concurrently with his federal sentence and is not likely to change Mr. Lane’s prison term because of differences in how federal and state officials calculate good behavior credit . In Minnesota, inmates are required to serve only two-thirds of their sentence, meaning Mr. Lane would only have to serve two years in prison. Federal inmates, however, must serve about 85 percent of their sentences, or just over two years for Mr. Lane. He could serve time in federal prison. Two other former officers — J. Alexander Kueng, 28, and Tou Thao, 36 — were also charged with second-degree murder and accessory to second-degree murder in Mr. Floyd’s death. They rejected a similar plea deal in August and are scheduled to go to trial in October. As Mr Lane and Mr Kueng helped Mr Chauvin restrain Mr Floyd, Mr Thao, who was Mr Chauvin’s partner, kept bystanders at bay. Mr. Kueng and Mr. Thao were also found guilty of willfully violating Mr. Floyd’s constitutional rights because they did not stop Mr. Chauvin from putting his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck. Mr. Floyd was black. Mr. Chauvin and Mr. Lane are white, Mr. Thao is Asian American, and Mr. Kueng is black. In July, Mr Kueng was sentenced to three years in prison and Mr Thao to three and a half years.
