Derek Chauvin will stand trial for murder in Minneapolis despite complaints from his defense that the city irreparably tainted the jury pool by disclosing its multimillion-dollar settlement with the family of George Floyd.
Judge Peter Cahill, who is overseeing the case, denied the defense’s request for a new location and a delay despite previously expressing concern about the city’s conduct.
“The fact that this came in the exact middle of jury selection — it’s perplexing to me, your honor, whose idea it was to release this information when it was released,” Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s attorney, said on Monday.
The Minneapolis government released the terms of the record-setting $27 million payout to Floyd’s family on Friday, which stemmed from a civil lawsuit against the city.
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“I wish city officials would stop talking about this case so much,” Cahill told the court on Monday, adding that he found the behavior of city officials “concerning.”
Two selected jurors were already dismissed from the case on Wednesday after telling the court that news of the settlement significantly affected their ability to be impartial.
“Unfortunately, I think the pretrial publicity, in this case, will continue no matter how long we continue it,” Cahill said Friday. “Perhaps some of it may, with time, be forgotten by people.”
Despite that setback for the defense, Cahill ruled that Floyd’s 2019 arrest, as well as footage from the body camera of an officer on the scene, could be admitted as evidence.
“The whole point here is we have medical evidence on what happens when Mr. Floyd is faced with virtually the same situation: confrontation by police at gunpoint followed by a rapid ingestion of some drugs. We don’t know exactly how many, but there was an admission that he had done it at the time of the stop,” Cahill said. “That is medical evidence.”
Cahill previously denied Nelson’s request to present the evidence during the trial. The defense successfully argued, however, that Floyd’s conduct was similar in 2019 to his interaction with Chauvin in May of last year.
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Nelson argued that newly discovered evidence that meth and fentanyl pills were present in Floyd’s car on the day he died suggests he may have ingested drugs while under arrest by Chauvin.
As of Friday morning, 12 jurors had been selected for the trial, with only two alternatives left to be selected. The jurors consist of two white men, four white women, one black woman, two multiracial women, and three black men.
