Opening statements set for Chauvin trial Monday
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.
Among the key figures and elements at trial:
COVID-19, cameras, security
Precautions to guard against the spread of COVID-19 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.
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.
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.
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 has not said whether Chauvin will testify.
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.