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Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric J. Nelson, could appeal the ruling to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Third-degree murder was the first charge Mr. Chauvin faced after he was arrested in the days following Mr. Floyd’s death on May 25. At the time, the charge prompted an outcry from both activists and lawyers, who said Mr. Chauvin should face a more severe charge and that a third-degree murder charge did not fit the circumstances of Mr. Floyd’s death.

Third-degree murder in Minnesota, they noted, has long been understood as an act — “evinced with a depraved mind,” according to the statute — that is dangerous to a group of people, rather than one person. An often cited example is a suspect who fires a gun randomly into a passing train, or someone who drives a car in to a crowd. In addition, drug dealers have often been prosecuted with third-degree murder in Minnesota when one of their customers dies of an overdose.

Going by that interpretation of third-degree murder, Judge Peter A. Cahill, who is presiding over Mr. Chauvin’s trial, dismissed the charge last fall and upheld the other charges.

But a recent decision by the Court of Appeals in a separate case appeared to reshape the interpretation of third-degree murder. Upholding a conviction of third-degree murder for Mohamed Noor, a former police officer who shot and killed a woman while on duty, the court determined that third-degree murder could be applied in a case in which the suspect’s actions were dangerous to a single person.

Judge Cahill said he disagreed with that appeals court decision when prosecutors recently sought to reintroduce the third-degree murder charge, which carries up to 25 years in prison if convicted, and that it was not binding because the Minnesota Supreme Court could still overturn it.