The trial has been described as one of the most important in the nation’s history, a potential barometer of change in a country where police officers are rarely punished for abusive behavior and fatal tactics used on the job.
Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died May 25 after he spent several minutes crying out for breath underneath Chauvin’s knee on a South Minneapolis street. Chauvin, who is White, was the senior officer on the scene responding to a store clerk’s claim that a customer passed a counterfeit $20 bill. The 44-year-old veteran officer led others in holding down Floyd until he lost consciousness and a pulse. The final minutes of Floyd’s life were captured on a teenage girl’s viral cellphone video.
Opening arguments in Chauvin’s case are expected to begin as soon as March 29. A trial for the three other officers implicated in Floyd’s death — J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao — is scheduled for August.
Here’s what you need to know about the trial as it unfolds.
How can I watch the trial?
The Washington Post will provide live gavel-to-gavel coverage of Chauvin’s trial on our website and on YouTube. Post staffers will anchor live special reports from the courthouse with analysis of the trial and interviews with reporters during key moments in the proceedings, beginning with opening arguments.
Chauvin’s trial is being held at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, with strict limitations on who is allowed in the courtroom. Court TV is operating the only three cameras inside the room, which will feed to various networks and news outlets, including The Post. Those cameras will be aimed at the judge, the witness stand, and the prosecution and defense tables.
Court TV has said it will broadcast and live-stream the trial for 14 hours a day for the duration, beginning each day with the opening gavel at 9 a.m. Eastern/8 a.m. Central.
Chauvin’s trial will mark the first time in Minnesota that a judge has authorized cameras to show a full criminal trial. Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter A. Cahill has said he agreed to allow the cameras because of intense public interest in the case and coronavirus restrictions that have limited courtroom access. “Not only is [the situation] abnormal — it is, in fact, quite unique,” Cahill said.
What charges does Chauvin face?
Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis police department, is charged with second-degree unintentional murder and second-degree manslaughter. On the murder charge, prosecutors will have to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin caused Floyd’s death while assaulting him. On the manslaughter charge, they will have to prove Chauvin took an “unreasonable risk” when he restrained Floyd and that his actions directly contributed to Floyd’s death.
State sentencing guidelines on the murder charge suggest roughly 11 years in prison for someone with no criminal history. The manslaughter charge carries a presumptive sentence of roughly four years in prison. However, a judge is allowed to sentence someone to more or less prison time. Prosecutors have asked for a tougher sentence, arguing that Floyd was killed in front of children.
Chauvin was also charged with third-degree murder, but Cahill dismissed the charge in October, saying the statute requires the fatal action to be “eminently dangerous ‘to others.’ ” The evidence presented by prosecutors so far has only shown that Chauvin’s actions were eminently dangerous to Floyd, the judge said. When prosecutors appealed, Cahill refused to reapply it. On March 5, the Minnesota Court of Appeals overturned Cahill’s decision again, ordering him to reconsider his ruling. The legal back-and-forth has threatened to delay the trial.
The other officers — Kueng, Lane and Thao — are charged with aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter.
How will the jury be selected?
Cahill began the jury process far earlier than usual. In late December, prospective jurors in Hennepin County were mailed a 16-page questionnaire asking about their views on policing, the criminal justice system and movements such as Black Lives Matter. The survey provided several blank pages for long answers and asked potential jurors to disclose everything they know about the case, including how many times, if any, they viewed videos of Floyd’s arrest. It asks whether they participated in protests after Floyd’s death and what their signs said.
Prospective jurors will be brought into the courthouse beginning March 8 to be interviewed by attorneys and the judge until they have selected 12 people and up to four alternate jurors. Cahill can remove any juror he believes has a conflict with fairly assessing the case. Chauvin’s attorney has been given 15 opportunities to challenge prospective jurors, while the prosecution has nine.
Defense attorneys have argued that a fair trial is not possible in Minneapolis because of extensive media coverage of the case and intense emotions in the community around policing. Cahill has said that if they cannot seat an impartial jury in Hennepin County, he will reconsider the change-of-venue requests, but he has noted: “There really isn’t a county … or a state in this country where there hasn’t been a lot of publicity about George Floyd’s death.”
What is Chauvin’s defense?
Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s attorney, said in an October court filing that he’ll argue that his client is not guilty because he acted in self-defense and used reasonable and authorized force as a police officer. He also has sought to introduce evidence of Floyd’s criminal history, a move strenuously opposed by prosecutors. So far, Cahill has blocked that evidence, ruling it irrelevant to the case.
One of the most integral aspects of Chauvin’s defense is Nelson’s argument that Floyd died from the drugs found in his system and other underlying health problems, including heart disease. Hennepin County Medical Examiner Andrew Baker formally declared Floyd’s death a homicide, listing “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression” as the cause of death. But the report also listed heart disease, fentanyl intoxication, recent methamphetamine use and Floyd’s bout with covid-19 as other “significant conditions.”
According to notes filed as evidence, the medical examiner told prosecutors that if Floyd had been “found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes,” it would have been “acceptable” to call his death an overdose. But, Baker added, “I am not saying this killed him.”
What is the evidence against Chauvin?
The evidence will probably include the viral video shot by Darnella Frazier, the 17-year-old who filmed Chauvin and the other officers as they restrained Floyd and who is listed as a prospective witness in the case. It will also include videos from body cameras worn by Kueng, Lane and Thao. Chauvin’s body camera fell off during the struggle with Floyd and captured only audio of the encounter, according to sources close to the case.
Prosecutors have sought to introduce past incidents in which Chauvin used force as a police officer, including several arrests in which he used a neck restraint similar to the one he used on Floyd. Cahill has allowed mention of just two past incidents, though the prosecution’s witness list includes several individuals who encountered Chauvin during his time on the force.
Who will testify?
Prosecutors released a list of more than 300 possible witnesses, and Chauvin’s defense disclosed more than 200 people it could call to the stand. Several names appear on both lists, including Frazier and several people who observed the events at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, where Floyd died.
Both sides have signaled their intent to call Baker, the medical examiner, who will be grilled about his cause-of-death determination. They have also listed several Minneapolis police officers, including Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, who will probably be questioned about police training. There are dozens of potential expert witnesses on the lists, including forensic pathologists and use-of-force experts.
Prosecutors have indicated that they will call several close Floyd associates, including his brother Philonise and his former girlfriend Courteney Ross, who could be asked to humanize Floyd’s struggles with opioid abuse. Prosecutors said they could call Kueng, Lane and Thao as potential witnesses — though many expect they would decline to testify, citing their constitutional right against self-incrimination. Chauvin also has the right to testify at his own trial, but there has been no indication that he will.
How long will the trial take?
Jury selection is scheduled to take roughly three weeks. Cahill has said opening arguments will begin no earlier than March 29, with testimony expected to last at least four weeks. Parties in the case believe a jury could begin deliberating in late April or early May.
Will there be protests?
Scores of community activists organized marches and other peaceful protests in the run-up to jury selection. They have said they plan to hold vigils outside the courthouse and other parts of the Twin Cities during the trial.
City, county and state officials began planning for trial security last summer, seeking to prevent a repeat of the civil unrest that damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings across Minneapolis, including a police station. They have reinforced the courthouse with blocks of concrete barriers, multiple layers of security fencing and barbed wire. At least 2,000 National Guard troops have been called to join at least 1,100 law enforcement officers from across the region that will guard the courthouse and other parts of the city.
Some city council members and other activists have questioned the intense security, worried that it could incite unrest rather than prevent it and that it sends a message suggesting the city believes Chauvin will be acquitted.
What led to George Floyd’s encounter with police?
Police responded to a 911 call on May 25 from a clerk at Cup Foods, a South Minneapolis convenience store, claiming that a customer had passed a counterfeit $20 bill. When Kueng and Lane arrived at the scene, an employee pointed out Floyd, who was sitting in a parked car across the street.
Lane pulled a gun on Floyd within 15 seconds of encountering him in the driver’s seat, prompting the man to panic and beg officers not to kill him. The officers handcuffed Floyd, but he resisted getting in a squad car, telling the officers he was claustrophobic and had recently had covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Chauvin and Thao arrived during the struggle and began assisting Lane and Kueng, rookie officers who were barely a week into the job.
At Thao’s suggestion, they placed Floyd on the street, holding him facedown. Lane held Floyd’s legs, Kueng held his back and Chauvin restrained him with a knee to the neck as Floyd complained of struggling to breathe, ultimately losing his pulse.
How long did Chauvin hold his knee at Floyd’s neck?
In the May 29 arrest complaint against Chauvin, prosecutors with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, which originally handled the case before it was turned over to the state attorney general, said the former officer had his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, citing police body-camera footage that had not yet been made public. But some media organizations questioned this calculation, pointing to time stamps of the video mentioned in the arrest complaint, and a spokesman for the county attorney later amended the time to 7 minutes and 46 seconds.
Body-camera video shows Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly three minutes after Kueng told him he could not detect a pulse, lifting it only when a paramedic nudged him.
Who will be in the courtroom, and what about the coronavirus?
Cahill had originally ordered all four officers to be tried together, a decision that was scuttled after court officials decided that the courtroom was not big enough to allow for social distancing. The jury box and public gallery have been removed to create more space, and only about 30 people will be allowed in the room — all ordered to limit movement and wear masks.
Jurors will sit six feet apart, and the prosecution and defense are each limited to four people in the room. Chauvin and his lawyer will sit together, with Chauvin instructed to stay seated and listen through a headset to any potential sidebar conferences between his attorney and prosecutors. Three members of the media will be allowed inside the room: a print pool reporter, a television pool reporter and a producer for Court TV. One member of the Floyd family and one associate of Chauvin’s will each have a seat.
Prosecutors asked to delay the proceedings until the summer, when more Americans will be vaccinated, but Cahill refused. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) rejected requests to vaccinate trial participants, arguing the proceedings were no riskier than other recent trials that have been held.
Steven Zeitchik contributed to this report.
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