Key Derek Chauvin prosecutor confirmed as federal judge

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The U.S. Senate has confirmed Jerry Blackwell — one of the prosecutors who helped convict a former Minneapolis police officer of murder in the killing of George Floyd — as the next federal judge in Minnesota. Jerry Blackwell is a Minneapolis attorney and a founding partner of the law firm Blackwell Burke. He worked pro bono as he helped prosecute Derek Chauvin for the May 2020 killing Floyd, delivering a powerful rebuttal during the state’s closing arguments. In June 2020, Blackwell also won a posthumous pardon for a Black man who was convicted of raping a white Duluth woman in 1920. The alleged rape led a white mob to lynch three other Black men.