First jurors seated in trial of ex-cop in Floyd’s death
MINNEAPOLIS — The long process of jury selection for a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death began Tuesday with three jurors picked and five dismissed, including some who said they would not be able to set aside their views on what happened.
One woman who was dismissed said: “I definitely have strong opinions about the case. I think I can try to be impartial — I don’t know that I can promise impartiality.”
Another woman said she saw bystander video showing Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck, and didn’t understand why the officer didn’t get up when Floyd said he couldn’t breathe.
“That’s not fair because we are humans, you know?” she said. She, too, was dismissed.
The exchanges between potential jurors, attorneys and the judge illustrate the challenges in seating a jury in such a well-known case. Judge Peter Cahill set aside three weeks for a process that could run longer; opening statements are scheduled no sooner than March 29.
Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death, and jury selection is proceeding despite uncertainty over whether a third-degree murder charge will be added. The state has asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals to stop proceedings until that’s resolved, which could mean a delay of weeks or months.
Floyd was declared dead May 25 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against the Black man’s neck for several minutes.
Chauvin and three other officers were fired; the others face a trial on aiding and abetting charges.
A man who was selected to serve on the jury, a chemist who says he comes to conclusions based on analysis and facts, said he has never watched the video of Floyd’s arrest but that he has seen a still image from the video. When asked if he could decide the case based on the evidence, he said, “I’d rely on what I hear in court.”
The man, whom prosecutors said identifies as white, said he supports the Black Lives Matter movement, but views the organization itself unfavorably. He also has an unfavorable view of the Blue Lives Matter movement. He said everyone should matter the same.
A woman who was selected described herself as a “go-with-the-flow” person who could talk with anyone about anything. The woman, said she initially had a negative perception of Chauvin because of what she saw in the bystander video.
But, she said, there could be many reasons why Chauvin would pin Floyd to the ground.
Cahill ruled on several pretrial motions Tuesday, setting parameters for trial testimony. Among them, Cahill said jurors will hear when Chauvin stopped working for the police department, but not that he was fired or that the city made a “substantial offer” to settle a lawsuit from Floyd’s family. Those details won’t be allowed because they could imply guilt, Cahill said.
More Americans now qualify for yearly scans to detect lung cancer, according to guidelines released Tuesday that may help more Black smokers and women get screened.
Lung cancer is the nation’s top cancer killer, causing more than 135,000 deaths each year. Smoking is the chief cause and quitting the best protection.
Usually, lung cancer is diagnosed too late for a good chance at survival. But some Americans who are at especially high risk get an annual low-dose CT scan, a type of X-ray, to improve those odds. Who’s eligible?
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said anyone between ages 50 and 80 who has smoked at least 20 “pack-years” and either still smokes or quit within the last 15 years. A “packyear” means smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for a year or an equivalent amount. So someone could qualify by going through a pack a day for 20 years or two packs a day for 10 years.
Since 2013, the scans have been recommended for heavier smokers — 30 packyears — and those a little older, starting at age 55. The task force updated the guidelines, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, after newer research showed lighter, younger smokers also benefit. About 15 million people are estimated to meet the new criteria, nearly double the prior number.
The task force recommendation means insurers must offer the screening without a copay to people who meet the criteria.
The changes “mean more Black people and women are now eligible for lung cancer screening, which is a step in the right direction,” Dr. John B. Wong, a task force member at Tufts Medical Center, said in a statement.
The panel said African Americans and women tend to be less heavy smokers and may not have met the earlier screening threshold despite being at risk for lung cancer.
In an editorial in JAMA Surgery, cancer specialists welcomed the changes. But “unfortunately, lowering the age and pack-year requirements alone does not guarantee increased equity in lung cancer screening,” wrote Dr. Yolonda Colson and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Her team noted “formidable” barriers including poor access to health care and even doctors not familiar enough with the screening to identify good candidates and help them decide.
Roger Mudd, 93, the longtime political correspondent and anchor for NBC and CBS who once stumped Sen. Edward Kennedy by simply asking why he wanted to be president, died Tuesday.
CBS News says Mudd died of complications of kidney failure at his home in McLean, Virginia.
During more than 30 years on network television, starting with CBS in 1961, Mudd covered Congress, elections and political conventions and was a frequent anchor and contributor to various specials.
His career coincided with the flowering of television news, the pre-cable, pre-internet days when the big three networks and their powerhouse ranks of reporters were the main source of news for millions of Americans.
Besides work at CBS and
NBC, he did stints on PBS’ “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” and the History Channel.
When he joined Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer’s show in 1987, Mudd told The Associated Press: “I think they regard news and information and fact and opinion with a reverence and respect that really is admirable.”
He wrote a memoir, “The Place to Be,” which came out in early 2008, and described the challenges and clashing egos he encountered working in Washington, where among other things he covered Congress for CBS for 15 years.
In an April 2008 interview on the “NewsHour,” he said he “absolutely loved” keeping tabs on the nation’s 100 senators and 435 representatives, “all of them wanting to talk, great access, politics morning, noon and night, as opposed to the White House, where everything is zipped up and tightly held.”
Mudd received a George Foster Peabody Award for his November 1979 special “CBS Reports: Teddy,” which aired just days before Kennedy officially announced his attempt to challenge then-President Jimmy Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination.
In the report, Mudd asked the Massachusetts senator a simple question: “Why do you want to be president?”
Kennedy was unable to give a focused answer or specify what he personally wanted to do.
“Well, I’m, uh, were I to make the announcement to run, the reasons that I would run is because I have a great belief in this country . ... We’re facing complex issues and problems in this nation at this time but we have faced similar challenges at other times . ... And I would basically feel that it’s imperative for this country to move forward, that it can’t stand still, for otherwise it moves backward.”
Mudd spent a fair amount of time in the “CBS Evening News” anchor chair, substituting for Walter Cronkite when he was off and anchoring the Saturday evening news broadcasts from 1966 to 1973.
But he lost out to Dan Rather in the competition to succeed Cronkite as the news anchor at CBS when the latter retired in 1981. Cronkite, for one, had backed Rather because he didn’t think Mudd had enough foreign experience.
It was then that Mudd jumped to NBC as its chief Washington correspondent. In addition, he co-anchored NBC’s “Nightly News” with Tom Brokaw for a year before Brokaw went solo in 1983, and for a time co-hosted “Meet the Press.”
Mudd left the “NewsHour” in 1992 to teach journalism at Princeton University.