A look at key figures in ex-officer’s murder trial
Opening statements are today in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd.
MINNEAPOLIS — Opening statements are set for Monday in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged with murder and manslaughter in George Floyd’s death. Derek Chauvin’s trial is expected to last about four weeks and it will be streamed online.
Floyd, who was Black, was declared dead on May 25 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn’t breathe.
Among the key figures and elements at trial:
COVID-19, cameras and court security
Precautions to guard against the spread of COVID19 have limited courtroom space, leading the judge to try Chauvin before three other fired officers charged with aiding and abetting.
The pandemic all but wiped out the possibility of public seating, so the judge is allowing the trial to be broadcast and livestreamed — a rare occurrence in a state that doesn’t usually allow cameras in court.
Barbed and razor wire and concrete barriers surround the courthouse, and strict security is in place. City and state leaders want to avoid a repeat of last year’s rioting that destroyed dozens of businesses and a police station.
The judge
Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill is respected and has a reputation as a no-nonsense, fair judge. He started in the county public defender’s office in 1984 and worked for 10 years as a prosecutor, serving as top advisor to U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar when she was the county’s head prosecutor.
Cahill has been a judge since 2007. He’s known for being decisive and direct, and he held firm on his decision to allow video cameras over the state’s objections, and to start the trial in March despite prosecutors’ pandemic concerns. He reversed himself and reinstated a third-degree murder charge. He also denied defense requests to delay or move the trial out of Hennepin County after the city of Minneapolis reached a $27 million settlement with Floyd’s family.
Prosecution
Days after Floyd’s death, Minnesota’s governor announced that Attorney General Keith Ellison would take the lead on prosecuting the case. This was a win for local civil rights advocates who said longtime Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman didn’t have the trust of the Black community.
Ellison, the state’s first African American elected attorney general, previously served in Congress and worked as a defense attorney. He was a frequent presence in the courtroom during jury selection, though he did not question jurors.
His team includes Matthew Frank, an experienced attorney who recently won a guilty plea in the case of Lois Riess, a Minnesota woman who got life in prison without parole for killing her husband in 2018. Riess became notorious after she fled Minnesota, killed a woman in Florida, and assumed her identity before she was captured.
Also on board are: Jerry Blackwell, who last year won a posthumous pardon for a Black man wrongly convicted of rape before the infamous Duluth lynchings of 1920; and Steven Schleicher, a former federal prosecutor who led the prosecution of the man who in 1989 kidnapped and killed Jacob Wetterling, whose death helped inspire a 1994 federal law requiring states to establish sex offender registries. Schleicher took the lead for the prosecution in jury selection.
Defense
Chauvin, 45, started working for the Minneapolis Police Department in 2001, making him by far the most experienced of the four officers involved in Floyd’s arrest.
He was fired soon after bystander video emerged. He was charged days later, and moved to a state prison for security reasons. He posted $1 million bond in October and was allowed to live out of state due to safety concerns.
His attorney, Eric Nelson, is among several attorneys in Minnesota who often represent police officers. One of his bigger cases involved Amy Senser, the wife of former Minnesota Vikings tight end Joe Senser, who was convicted in the 2011 hit-and-run death of a Minneapolis chef. Nelson argued that Senser should be sentenced to probation, but a judge gave her 41 months in prison.
Nelson also has tried murder cases. He helped win an acquittal for a Minnesota man who was charged with fatally shooting his unarmed neighbor in 2017. He also won an acquittal for a Wisconsin man who testified that he feared for his safety when he fatally stabbed a man who confronted him in 2015.
Nelson has not said whether Chauvin will testify.
George Floyd
Floyd, 46, moved to Minneapolis from Houston several years before his death in hopes of finding work but had lost his job as a restaurant bouncer due to COVID19. On May 25, an employee at a Minneapolis grocery store called the police saying Floyd tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill.
Floyd had five children, including a young daughter who lives with her mother in Houston. His friend Christopher Harris told The Associated Press that Floyd had been “looking to start over fresh, a new beginning.”
The jury
Chauvin’s fate will be decided by 12 Hennepin County residents, whose names will be kept confidential until further court order. Two alternate jurors were selected to listen to testimony, but will not be part of deliberations unless needed. A third alternate will be sent home before opening statements Monday unless that person is needed to replace someone at the last minute.
PORTLAND, MAINE — Bill Griffin waited more than a year for this moment: Newly vaccinated, he embraced his 3-year-old granddaughter for the first time since the pandemic began.
“She came running right over. I picked her up and gave her a hug. It was amazing,” the 70-year-old said after the reunion last weekend.
Spring has arrived with sunshine and warmer weather, and many older adults who have been vaccinated, like Griffin, are emerging from COVID-19-imposed hibernation.
From shopping in person or going to the gym to bigger milestones like visiting family, the people who were once most at risk from COVID-19 are beginning to move forward with getting their lives on track. More than 47% of Americans who are 65 and older are now fully vaccinated.
Visiting grandchildren is a top priority for many older adults. In Arizona, Gailen Krug has yet to hold her first grandchild, who was born a month into the pandemic in Minneapolis. Now fully vaccinated, Krug is making plans to travel for her granddaughter’s first birthday in April.
“I can’t wait,” said Krug, whose only interactions with the girl have been over Zoom and FaceTime. “It’s very strange to not have her in my life yet.”
The excitement she feels, however, is tempered with sadness. Her daughter-inlaw’s mother, who she had been looking forward to sharing grandma duties with, died of COVID-19 just hours after the baby’s birth. She contracted it at a nursing home.
Isolated by the pandemic, older adults were hard hit by loneliness caused by restrictions intended to keep people safe. Many of them sat out summer reunions, canceled vacation plans and missed family holiday gatherings in November and December.
In states with older populations, like Maine, Arizona and Florida, health officials worried about the emotional and physical toll of loneliness, posing an additional health concern on top of the virus.
But that’s changing, and more older people are reappearing in public after they were among the first group to get vaccinated.
Those who are fully vaccinated are ready to get out of Dodge without worrying they were endangering themselves amid a pandemic that has claimed more than 540,000 lives in the United States.
“Now there’s an extra level of confidence. I am feeling good about moving forward,” said Ken Hughes, a 79-yearold Florida resident who is flying with his wife for a pandemic-delayed annual trip to Arizona in April.
Plenty of older adults are eager to hop on a jet to travel. Others are looking forward to the simpler things like eating at a restaurant, going to a movie theater or playing bingo.
Sally Adams, 74, was among several older people who showed up for “parking lot bingo” in Glendale, Arizona. She felt safe because she’d been vaccinated and because she was in her car at the first bingo event in more than year.
Once she fulfills the time to reach peak immunity, she plans to indulge in little things like eating out. Both she and her husband, who is also vaccinated, have only done takeout. Now, they feel like it will be OK to even eat indoors — as long as it’s not crowded.
“We’ll probably go in and take the farthest table from other people just to be on the safe side,” she said.
Indeed, many older adults are taking a cautious approach, especially when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declined to ease recommendations for travel.
Frequent traveler Cindy Charest was so excited about the prospect of jetting away for the first time in more than a year that she posted an airplane emoji with a photo of her being vaccinated on social media.
But she’s taking a wait-andsee attitude after the CDC recommended against nonessential air travel, for now.
“I think I got prematurely excited about it,” said Charest, 65, of Westbrook, Maine.