Minneapolis has been bracing for weeks for the trial, which is poised to be a defining moment in the history of a nation that is grappling with a racial reckoning. City and county officials here estimate that they are spending a combined $1 million on security ahead of the trial, fortifying public buildings, lining streets with fencing and barbed wire, and bringing in the National Guard and other law enforcement officers.
The debate about the third-degree murder charge has injected even more uncertainty into the case, heightening tension in a city already on edge.
Chauvin appeared in the courtroom Monday, his first public appearance since September. He wore a black face mask and a dark blue suit and stood at militarylike attention as Hennepin County District Judge Peter A. Cahill called the proceedings to order. Seated at a table next to his attorney in a socially distanced courtroom, the former officer looked back and forth between attorneys and the judge, as they argued about whether the case should proceed. He held a pen and a legal pad, but did not take notes.
Nelson told Cahill that he intends to ask the Minnesota Supreme Court to consider a state appellate court ruling Friday that indicated that the third-degree murder charge should be reinstated. But Nelson said the trial should not be delayed, arguing that the judge should continue with jury selection and weigh matters related to other charges in the case.
“We’re prepared to try this case. It is not our intent to cause delay. . . . However, I do have an ethical obligation to my client,” Nelson said in court Monday, adding that he did not think the court “is deprived of jurisdiction over anything other” than the third-degree murder charge.
But prosecutors argued that the proceedings should be postponed amid expected appeals. Matthew Frank, the assistant Minnesota attorney general and lead prosecutor, argued that Cahill does not have jurisdiction over the third-degree murder charge while it is under appeal and that jury selection should not proceed in a case in which the charges are uncertain.
“This court will be seating jurors for a trial about which we don’t know what the exact charges are going to be yet,” Frank said. “Our position is that while this appeal is pending, the court doesn’t have authority to hear matters that are involved in the trial.”
But Cahill disagreed, estimating that if the court were to wait for appeals on the third-degree murder charge to be resolved, it could delay the case by at least 30 days, if not more.
Prosecutors said they would ask the appeals court to stay the case, challenging Cahill’s decision to move forward with jury selection. Cahill called off jury selection for the day and paused the proceedings as the parties wait for a “telephonic ruling” on whether the appeals court will take the case and issue a stay.
Meanwhile, protesters gathered outside the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis to support members of Floyd’s family. About a dozen activists gathered near the entrance, holding signs with messages such as “Stronger together,” “We love you” and “Hope,” as hiphop and soul music blared from a speaker, starting with a protest anthem from the summer, “How Many Times,” by Trey Songz.
On the other side of the signs were mirrors with starker messages, such as “Accountability,” “The world is watching” and “Reflect.”
Visual Black Justice, a youth-driven advocacy group, organized the display. It also brought panels of murals of Floyd that had been painted on plywood that businesses used to board up in the aftermath of last summer’s riots.
The group’s president, Taycier Elaine Elhindi, 23, stood at the front holding a sign reading, “We got your back,” which, when flipped, was a mirror reading, “No peace.”
“The combination of the boards and the mirror was because we need to look back at where we were nine months ago and then we need to look forward to where we need to be,” she told The Washington Post the day before. “Also, we need to look at ourselves and ask: How can we make that change? And so, as much as we’re holding our elected officials and our government and our law enforcement and the National Guard accountable, we need to be holding each other and ourselves accountable in the space.”
Athena Papagiannopoulos, 26, the group’s founder, held a sign saying, “We love you.”
“I think part of the reflection piece is how are we all. But this trial is really going to dictate and kind of tell the world how we value certain lives. And so, while it’s about the trial of Derek Chauvin, it’s really about so much more than that. And I think that’s part of the message we want to send,” she said.
At a rally near a light rail station about a block away, the mood was more boisterous. As incense burned and a snare drum kept the beat, several hundred people chanted, “Indite, convict, throw these killer cops in jail, the whole damn system is guilty as hell.”
As the chants died down, speakers took to a microphone, and then a Native dance troupe, with members wearing bright floral headdresses and beads on their ankles, began a ritualistic dance while two drummers in the center of the circle kept a thumping, steady rhythm.
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