MINNEAPOLIS — Jurors heard competing arguments Monday about Derek Chauvin's guilt or innocence in the death of George Floyd last year, with the prosecution contending there was no justification for the now-fired Minneapolis police officer's actions and the defense countering that Chauvin acted reasonably.
Proceedings resumed shortly after 9 a.m. before Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill, who has been presiding over the case since March 8, when defense and prosecution lawyers began selecting jurors. Cahill began by reading jury instructions on the law.
Prosecutor Steve Schleicher used 1 hour and 45 minutes to argue that Chauvin's pinning of Floyd on the pavement at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue robbed the 46-year-old man of oxygen until he died as a bystander recorded the restraint on her cellphone and shared it with the world on social media.
"The only thing about defendant's intent that we have to prove is that he applied force to George Floyd on purpose," Schleicher said. "Somebody's telling you they can't breathe and you keep doing it. You're doing it on purpose. ... How can you justify the continued force on this man when he has no pulse."
The prosecutor reminded jurors that Floyd said "I can't breathe" 27 times in the first 4 minutes and 45 seconds of this encounter.
"Was George Floyd resisting when he was trying to breathe? No," he said, adding that Chauvin chose to mock Floyd by saving, "It takes a lot of oxygen to complain."
Wrapping up after focusing on the officer's actions, his training and the medical evidence in the case, Schleicher called on the jurors to convict Chauvin on all counts because "it is not an excuse for the shocking abuse you saw with your own eyes" thanks to a teenage bystander's video of Floyd's detention on the pavement as he drew his last breath on May 25.
"You can believe your eyes," the prosecutor said. "It's what you felt in your gut, it's what you felt in your heart."
Defense attorney Eric Nelson took his turn and went for more than 2 1/2 hours until Judge Peter Cahill interrupted him and ordered a 30-minute recess for lunch at 2:10 p.m.
Nelson started by pointing out two legal pillars that he wanted jurors to keep in mind: the presumption of innocence that his client is afforded and the requirement that the prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt before there can be a finding of guilt on any of the charges: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
"The use of force is an incredibly difficult analysis," Nelson said. "You can't limit it to 9 minutes and 29 seconds, but it started nearly 17 minutes earlier."
This was an authorized use of force, "as unattractive as that may be," Nelson said after lightly pounding his hand onto the lectern to drive his point home. He said this case has "reasonable doubt."
"There is absolutely no evidence that officer Chauvin intentionally, purposefully applied unlawful force."
To support his argument that jurors must look at the totality of the evidence, Nelson cited expert witness Dr. Martin Tobin's rebuttal of a defense expert who said carbon monoxide was a possible factor in Floyd's death. Tobin testified it wasn't possible, because Floyd's blood was 98% oxygenated. However, Nelson pointed out the testimony of paramedics who gave Floyd oxygen, which explains the reoxygenation of his blood.
"Take the time and make an honest assessment of the facts of this case," he said. "We have to be intellectually honest about the evidence; we have to present it in an intellectually cohesive manner. ... I submit to you the state has failed to meet hits burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt."
Nelson showed the jurors bodycam footage of Floyd's arrest to demonstrate Floyd's struggle with officers before he was on the ground. He said Chauvin's actions were in line of those of a reasonable police officer.
"A reasonable police officer would hear the words that a suspect is saying — I'm a good guy, I'm claustrophobic — and he's going to compare those words to the actions of the individual," Nelson said. " ... A reasonable police officer understands the intensity of the struggle ... Mr. Floyd was able to overcome the efforts of three police officers while handcuffed with his legs and his body strength."
As Nelson strung out his points, Chauvin sat at the defense table and looked up more than he did during the state's closing argument.
Nelson repeated "9 minutes and 29 seconds" multiple times as he argued that prosecutors have given little weight to how three officers struggled in vain to get a resistant and possibly high Floyd in the squad car after arresting him on suspicion of trying to pass a fake $20 bill at the Cup Foods store on the corner on May 25, 2020.
A reasonable officer would take into account the 16 minutes and 59 seconds leading up to the 9 minutes 29 seconds, Nelson said, adding that no one knows the unpredictability of human behavior more than officers.
"It's constantly rotating," the defense said of an officer's assessment of a scene and the suspect, including that Floyd might have been concocting reasons he couldn't get in the squad or be arrested.
"Human behavior is unpredictable, and no one knows it better than a police officer," Nelson said.
Nelson turned to the testimony from several key witnesses to show that they no one of them has the whole story about all of the circumstances surrounding the incident. "Perspective and perception are two different things," he said.
Nelson said Charles McMillian, a 61-year-old man of limited education from the South, had a perspective that was different from 17-year-old high school student Darnella Frazier, off-duty firefighter Genevieve Hansen or martial arts instructor Donald Williams.
Rather, the most important perception based on perspective comes from a reasonable officer, the defense attorney said as he made the argument that Chauvin was just that on May 25 and had more information about the situation than the bystanders.
"We don't look at this incident from the perspective of a bystander," Nelson said. "We look at it from the perspective of a reasonable police officer."
Nelson pointed out that at the time Floyd took his last breath, Chauvin pulled out his Mace and threatened to use it, while Hansen attempted to approach him.
"All of these facts and circumstances simultaneously occur at a critical moment and that changed officer Chauvin's perception at that moment."
Once Nelson is done, the prosecution then has the option to make a brief rebuttal to the defense's contentions. That task will fall to prosecutor Jerry Blackwell.
In his closing arguments, Schleicher meticulously told of the moments of Floyd's restraint as he "struggled to make enough room in his chest to breathe. But the force was too much. He was trapped [by] the unyielding pavement as unyielding as the men who were pushing him."
"All that was required was a little compassion, and none was shown that day" by Chauvin, the prosecutor said during his address, which was interspersed with photos and video from the scene that were part of the previously submitted evidence. "All that was needed was some oxygen."
Schleicher said Floyd called police "Mr. Officer" and "he pleaded with Mr. Officer. George Floyd's final words were ... 'Please, I can't breathe.' And he said those words to Mr. Officer. He said those words to the defendant."
The prosecutor then made clear that Chauvin is on trial and not his profession, saying: "The defendant is not on trial for being a police officer. It's not the State of Minnesota vs. the police. He's not on trial for what he was, he is on trial for what he did, and that is what he did that day. Nine minutes and 29 seconds."
"Sometimes you ask for the truth and sometimes you insist on the truth, and the truth is the defendant was on top of him for 9 minutes and 29 seconds," Schleicher continued, noting that there was no reason Chauvin didn't know Floyd was in grave danger. "He had to know. He had to know."
Schleicher reintroduced to the jurors some of the witnesses to Floyd's arrest, noting two of them called the police on the police. He explained that Floyd was compliant from the moment he had a police officer's gun close to his face all the way until officers tried to put him in a squad car, but balked as he said he was claustrophobic.
"He tried to explain himself to the officers that he had anxiety, that he had claustrophobia," he said of Floyd's reaction to squad car back seat that looked like a "cage."
Schleicher said that once the officers gave up their efforts, "what did George Floyd say when they pulled him out of the car? 'Thank you.'"
But then the officers pushed him down onto his side and placed him on his stomach.
"Proning him was completely unnecessary and this is where the excessive force begins," Schleicher said. "They didn't just lay him prone. They didn't do that. They stayed on top of him."
Chauvin kept his eyes down as the prosecutor played an officer's body camera video of Floyd being forced onto his side on the street.
Schleicher then went after the defense's case that various factors led to Floyd dying, among them a heart attack, health problems, illicit drugs and possibly carbon monoxide from a nearby squad car.
He said it would be "an amazing coincidence [that] he chose at that moment to die of heart disease. ... Is that common sense or is that nonsense?" He reminded the jurors that the defense possibilities can still be contributing factors and not negate Chauvin being guilty.
Nearly an hour into his outline of the prosecution's case, Schleicher turned to the medical evidence and the experts to supported that Floyd died from a lack of oxygen and that he did not die from what the defense suggested with its witnesses.
"It wasn't cardiac arrest," he said. "It wasn't a drug overdose. You know how George Floyd died. It was the low level of oxygen, it was the asphyxia that caused him to die" as he was pressed against the pavement by Chauvin and two fellow officers.
He did not die of a drug overdose, that's not how he died," Schleicher said. "He did not die of excited delirium. ... There are no superhumans."
The prosecutor used the defense's medical expert against Chauvin, noting that "even Dr. [David] Fowler was critical" under cross-examination last week that neither the defendant nor anyone else gave Floyd medical care.
When Schleicher played a few seconds of the viral bystander video showing Chauvin's knee on Floyd's neck, the former officer did not look up. Schleicher showed some autopsy pictures of George's face, shoulders and knuckle scraped from pavement. Chauvin looked up quickly at first then down again.
"Somebody's telling you they can't breathe, everybody knows this, everybody know what happens when you push someone against the pavement," he said, showing the photos. "You learn this pretty early on."
As the prosecutor went through the second- and third-degree murder charges and what needs or does not need to be proven, he said, "The dangers of prone restraint have been known for about 30 years. The defendant's actions created a high-risk of death."
Despite the pleadings of bystanders and the suggestion from a fellow officer to roll Floyd on his side, Chauvin was unwavering, Schleicher said, adding: "He knew better; he just didn't do better. ... This isn't protection. This isn't courage. And it certainly wasn't compassion."
While guiding the jurors through the manslaughter count, Schleicher noted the "indifference" displayed by Chauvin and the other officers. They picked a rock out the squad car tire near Floyd's head, complained about the smell of Floyd's feet. "His negligence includes his failure to act," the prosecutor said.
Schleicher spelled out how Floyd posed no threat and then played back Chauvin's bodycam video that included him saying to a witness that he kept Floyd on the pavement because he was a big man and possibly high on drugs.
"Being large and being on something is not a justification for a use of force," he said. "The defendant's entire basis, this explanation to Charles McMillian after he got up off Mr. Floyd, tossed him on the gurney and walked away like he was nothing, that was his explanation."
He added that what Chauvin did was "not procedure. It's not the use of force procedure. It's not following the rules."
In his closing argument, Nelson said that "throughout the course of this trial the state has focused your attention on 9 minutes and 29 seconds," the amount of time his client had Floyd pinned to the pavement. Nelson said jurors must use "proper analysis" and only consider that span of time in "totality of the circumstances" of the incident, staring with the 911 dispatch call.
Other considerations for Chauvin at the scene included the safety of other officers, bystanders and Floyd, Nelson added. Chauvin also had to consider being in a part of the city known to be a crime hot spot, along with information from dispatch that Floyd was a much larger man than himself who was possibly under the influence of drugs. Chauvin also had to take into account that the two officers who initially answered the call were rookies on the force.
Nelson elaborated on the witnesses nearby and how they grew more agitated and distracted Chauvin at a critical moment from the restraint he was placing on Floyd.
Three things happened almost simultaneously, Nelson said: Floyd takes his last breath, Chauvin pulls his Mace and shakes it out of concern about the bystanders, and Hansen "walks in from behind at the time, startling him."
All of that, the defense attorney said, "change officer Chauvin's perception of what was happening" and then followed his training by not providing CPR to Floyd.
Turning his attention to Floyd's cause of death, Nelson accused the prosecution of ignoring the findings of the autopsy pointing to contributing factors and arguing that lack of oxygen alone killed Floyd.
Therefore, the state must prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that Floyd's heart disease, hypertension, a tumor and drug use played no role in death, Nelson told the jurors.
He said answers from five state expert witnesses "fly in the face" of common sense if you consider the finding of county medical examiner Dr. Andrew Baker, the only person to perform an autopsy, that Floyd died of asphyxia.
The prosecution "did not like Dr. Baker's conclusions," Nelson said.
Before sending the jury into deliberations, Cahill will excuse two of the 14 jurors who heard the case as alternates. Which two end up being sent home is left to the judge.
Once in deliberations, the jurors' first task is to select a foreperson whose duties include ensuring that each juror has a chance to participate in deliberations and that the issues that arose during the trial are contemplated completely. They will have a laptop computer and monitor to review the substantial amount of video and other exhibits presented over the past few weeks. What they won't have is a transcript of the testimony. Instead, the jurors must rely on their collective notes and memories.
Jurors are likely to have questions for the court during deliberations. Rather than have the jury return to the courtroom for an answer, this communication will be done by video conference out of caution amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Deliberations for this case are being done at an undisclosed location, presumably not in the Hennepin County Government Center.
The jurors will remain sequestered throughout their deliberations and until the verdicts are read in court and livestreamed to a worldwide audience.
Three other fired officers who assisted in Floyd being restrained stomach-down for more than 9 minutes — J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao — are scheduled to be tried in August on charges of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter.
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(Star Tribune staff writers Chao Xiong and Rochelle Olson contributed to this report.)
