Diverse jury raises activists’ hopes for ex-cop’s trial

MINNEAPOLIS — The jury that will decide the fate of a white former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death is unusually diverse by local standards, and that’s boosting activists’ hopes for a rare conviction.

The panel of 15 includes nine people who are white and six who are Black or multiracial, according to the court. If the court follows standard practice and the alternates are the last three chosen, the 12 who deliberate would be evenly split between whites and people of color. Opening statements are Monday.

“It’s a small step in the right direction,” said Trahern Crews, an organizer and spokesman for Black Lives Matter in Minnesota. African Americans bring “an institutional memory of the police” to jury rooms that whites and even other people of color don’t share, he said.

It’s very rare to seat such a mixed jury in Minnesota, said Mary Moriarty, a former chief public defender for Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis. That’s important because they’ll bring a “very different lens” to their deliberations, she said, though she said it’s a mistake to think people of color all view things the same.

Court records obtained by Moriarty show Blacks are chronically underrepresented on juries in Hennepin County, which is 74 percent white and 14 percent Black. The jury pool in 2019 — created from lists of people with driver’s licenses or state ID cards, as well as voter registration lists — was 79 percent white and 8 percent Black.

Scholars, courts and legal groups have increasingly advocated for greater jury diversity — not just by race, but by gender and socioeconomic backgrounds. Experts say when jurors share the same background, they’re less likely to question their own biases and preconceptions heading into deliberations. And they say jurors from different backgrounds may evaluate witnesses differently, including how much weight to give their testimony.

Derek Chauvin is charged with murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death May 25. The Black man was declared dead after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against his neck for about nine minutes while he was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn’t breathe. The widely seen video set off street protests in Minneapolis, some violent, that spread across the U.S. and the world.

It’s rare for police officers to stand trial for fatal shootings. When they do, recent history suggests a more diverse jury increases the odds for conviction, although the record is mixed.