MINNEAPOLIS – The Derek Chauvin murder trial is staying put and staying on schedule.
Those are the rulings from Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill on defense motions for a change of venue and continuance handed down Friday in the case against the fired Minneapolis police officer accused of causing the death of George Floyd late last spring.
Cahill weighed both options for much of this week in the wake of the well-publicized announcement of last week's record $27 million settlement between the city of Minneapolis and Floyd's family. It led to the dismissal of two seated jurors who said it impacted their viewpoints.
"Unfortunately, the pretrial publicity will continue no matter how long we continue [the trial]," the judge said.
However, he acknowledged the impact of the city's settlement on the case.
"I'll be very honest, when it was first brought up by the defense I thought they were overstating it," he said. " … I was a little shocked when we called back the seven of the nine jurors that had been seated and two of them basically said they could not be fair and impartial any longer."
Regarding a change of venue, the judge said, "I don't think there's any place in the state of Minnesota that has not been subjected to extreme amounts of publicity in this case. … With that, we'll continue with jury selection in this case and in this county."
On other motions Friday, Cahill ruled that only portions of the events surrounding Floyd's drug arrest in Minneapolis in May 2019 are admissible in this trial, namely any evidence or testimony that directly relates to his medical condition after having a police officer point a gun at him and taking him into custody.
Not to be admitted from the 2019 arrest, the judge said, is anything about his emotional behavior such as calling out for his mother, something he did in both encounters with police.
The judge said he will allow during the trial the admission of a portion of the body camera video from the 2019 arresting officer, Floyd's blood pressure results at the scene, a suspected illicit drug pill in his car and his statements to the paramedic for the purpose of her diagnosis. The paramedic may also testify.
With those motions settled, it's back to jury selection Friday morning. Two are needed to get to the 14 needed, with two being alternates. Opening statements and testimony are scheduled to begin March 29 and last two to four weeks.
Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The other defendants in the case — J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao — are scheduled to be tried in August on charges of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter.
Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson, motioned Monday to postpone the trial and move it to an unspecified county because he felt the settlement had unfairly tainted the local jury pool. The surprise development occurred a week into Chauvin's trial.
Nelson raised the issue again Thursday after city officials held a news conference that morning about the settlement.
"I would note that the city of Minneapolis indicated that the timing was of the essence, yet the agreement has not been finalized and will not be finalized for month," he told Judge Cahill. "It raises the question of whether the announcement was necessary, regardless of timing. I just wanted to make the court aware that this is an ongoing public discussion that the mayor and city attorney are engaging in."
Legal scholars and lawyers said they expected Cahill to deny Nelson's requests given the reach of Floyd's story and the two weeks the court has already invested in selecting jurors. Chauvin's trial started March 8 and is scheduled to last up to about two months.
A change of venue would have forced the court to move the trial to a less racially diverse county, and a delay would pose financial and logistical hurdles, said Ted Sampsell-Jones, a professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law.
Chauvin is white; Floyd was Black. Floyd's death sparked a racial reckoning across the world, and Chauvin's trial is the state's first trial of a white officer charged with killing a Black civilian on the job.
Three jurors were seated Thursday for a total of 12; half are people of color: A multi-race woman in her 20s, a multi-race woman in her 40s, two Black men in their 30s, a Black man in his 40s, a Black woman in her 60s, three white women in their 50s, a white woman in her 40s, a white man in his 30s, a white man in his 20s.
Delaying or relocating the trial now is also complicated by the fact that the trial has been livestreamed daily for two weeks across several local and national media outlets, sharing news of the case more continuously than before. The livestream is unprecedented in Minnesota, and was ordered by Cahill because COVID-19 restrictions greatly limited who could attend the trial in-person.
Prospective jurors were summoned for Chauvin's trial about three months ago and were asked to fill out a lengthy questionnaire. They were also ordered to avoid news of the case, but nearly all who have been questioned one-by-one in court have said they avoided the news but inadvertently heard some TV reports, saw some headlines or were drawn into conversations with friends about the case due to is ubiquity. (They were also ordered not to tell anyone they were being summoned to potentially serve on Chauvin's jury.)
Nelson — and attorneys representing three other former Minneapolis police officers also charged in the case — first requested a change of venue last year long before Chauvin's trial began March 8.
Cahill previously said he would keep an open mind on the issue, but said he didn't think news of the case had left any corner of Minnesota untouched. The judge also wrote in a previous ruling that no other county could provide the same level of security as Hennepin County, an issue that arose after protesters swarmed the former officers and their attorneys as they left a hearing last year. After a subsequent hearing last year, a man threatening to kill Chauvin was arrested in the courthouse lobby carrying an allegedly loaded gun and several knives.
Concrete barricades, double layers of fencing and barbed wire have been installed around the courthouse and nearby county jail. Armed National Guard officers stand watch outside the courthouse, which has been shut down to most non-trial activity.
Nelson on Monday also requested that seven jurors who were seated before the settlement was announced be recalled this week for further questioning.
On Wednesday, Cahill questioned them via Zoom. That led to two of them being excused from the jury, knocking the seated jurors from nine back to seven that day.
Cahill broadly asked prospective jurors this week whether they heard any news regarding civil litigation linked to the case, and as the week progressed, more pointedly asked if they knew about a "settlement."
City officials, including Mayor Jacob Frey, appeared at a widely publicized and livestreamed news conference last Friday alongside Floyd's family members and their attorneys to announce news of the settlement.
Six of eight prospective jurors questioned Thursday said they had some knowledge of the settlement from news accounts or friends. One woman said she was unable to avoid a conversation about the settlement between her friends.
"One of them said, 'That's not enough,' " the woman said. "Another said, 'If that's what it is that's how much human life costs.' "
The woman said she "constantly" kept up with the news after Floyd died May 25 while being arrested by Minneapolis police, and that it had "somewhat" swayed her in favor of the prosecution's case. News of the settlement, she said, added to that opinion.
Cahill dismissed her because of her exposure to news, adding "especially the settlement which you said might have pushed the needle a little bit further."
Another woman said she could be a fair juror despite seeing news of the settlement on TV. She said she recalled the payout was in the "millions," but could not remember the amount.
"My initial reaction of course was shock, surprise," she said, "but then I just kind of said to myself, 'Well, I didn't hear all of it, so I don't know all of it.' "
The woman was later excused for an unspecified reason following additional questioning that occurred with the livestream's audio muted.
A third woman said she heard news of the settlement but couldn't recall anything beyond the dollar amount. The woman, who is white, is a nurse in her 50s who lives in a western suburb. She was admitted to the jury.
"It is … likely that almost everyone in Minnesota knows something about the civil settlement in the Floyd case," Mitchell Hamline School of Law emeritus professor Joseph Daly.
