Professor and Senior Scholar Steve Friedland was among three North Carolina experts who spoke with WFMY News 2 in the hours after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced to prison for the murder of George Floyd.
An 黑料不打烊 Law expert on criminal law was one of three North Carolina legal scholars who spoke with WFMY News 2 on June 25 for coverage of the sentencing of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
黑料不打烊 Law Professor and Senior Scholar Steve Friedland joined with Kami Chavis of Wake Forest University, and Theodore “Ted” Shaw of UNC Chapel Hill,
Chauvin, 45, was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for the 2020 murder, which sparked a summer of national protests after it was caught on video. Chauvin is eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
鈥淧rosecutors鈥 main theme was 鈥榖elieve your eyes. Look at the video,鈥欌 Friedland told the CBS affiliate in Greensboro. 鈥淭his judge, given the aggravating factors, very well could have given a longer sentence.鈥
Friedland also said that he didn鈥檛 believe Chauvin speaking at his sentencing hearing made a difference in the length of the sentence.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the video that really counts, and this (Chauvin鈥檚 remarks) is coming afterward and late, and it鈥檚 also in his own interest,鈥 Friedland said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think we saw the kind of remorse that could have really made a little bit of difference (in the sentence).鈥
Friedland is a founding member of the law school faculty. In addition to law teaching, he has served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and as an Assistant Director of the Office of Legal Education in the Department of Justice.
An accomplished scholar who has published articles in several renowned journals, Friedland鈥檚 books on Evidence Law, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Procedure and Law School Teaching have been published by the West Publishing Company, Aspen Press, Lexis Publishing Company and Carolina Academic Press.
Friedland was elected to the American Law Institute, served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Law School Admission Council, and is a current member of the Lexis Advisory Board. He has won numerous teaching awards at several law schools over three decades and was named one of the best law teachers in America by the Harvard University Press book, 鈥淲hat the Best Law Teachers Do.鈥