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Jurors have begun deliberations in the high-profile trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, accused of murdering George Floyd.
After weeks of statements and a day of final arguments, the jury must now decide whether Chauvin used excessive force when he knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes while detaining him on suspicion of using a false $ 20 bill.
During his nearly two-hour dispute Monday, prosecutor Steve Schleicher returned to an issue raised at the start of the trial: Jurors may believe what they saw in the video of Floyd’s death.
“You can believe it in your own eyes,” he said. “This case is exactly what you thought when you first saw it with that video. . . It’s what you felt in your gut. It’s what you know in your heart now. That wasn’t police, it was murder. “
Eric Nelson, a defense attorney, later told jurors that the state had failed in its charge of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He stressed that Chauvin should be tried on the basis of what a reasonable officer would have known during the incident.
“No crime is committed if it is an authorized use of force,” he said. “Period. End of discussion.
“The rule is not what the agent should have done in these circumstances,” he added. “It’s not what the officer could have done differently in these circumstances. The rule is what facts this officer knew at the exact moment he used force and… What an officer would have done. reasonable police “.
The case is being closely monitored in Minneapolis and the United States a referendum about the degree to which U.S. police officers will be responsible for killing black Americans.
Many in the subway area have said there could be riots if the jury acquits Chauvin. The National Guard is on the streets of Minneapolis and around suburban Brooklyn Center, where police used tear gas and rubber bullets against protesters last week while demonstrated against the the murder of another black man by a police officer.
Chauvin’s lawyers have argued that he has not been able to get a fair trial given the wide media coverage of the proceedings. Judge Peter Cahill also expressed concern over comments over the weekend from Maxine Waters, a California Democratic congresswoman, who urged protesters to “be more confrontational” if Chauvin is acquitted.
These comments “may result in the revocation of this entire trial” on appeal, Cahill said Monday, as he sent jurors to deliberate.
Steve Schleicher gives final arguments for processing © AP
Chauvin is charged with second- and third-degree homicide and second-degree homicide. The maximum potential sentence ranges from 10 years for homicide to 40 years for second-degree murder.
The final arguments allow attorneys to summarize their view of a case, placing all evidence and other evidence in context to support their theory of events. Prosecutors take on the burden of proving the guilt of the accused “without any reasonable doubt.” Conviction in the U.S. legal system requires a unanimous vote of the jury.
Schleicher told jurors they had to put aside any preconceived notions that police officers could not commit crimes or that the police in general should be tried.
“We need to put aside the notion that it is impossible for a police officer to do something like that,” he said. “It simply came to our notice then. He is being tried for what he did. “
“What the defendant did was not do police,” he added. “What the defendant did was an assault. . . He betrayed the insignia.
Referring to a spectator who told Floyd “you can’t win,” Schleicher said, “George Floyd replied, ‘I’m not trying to win, I’m scared.’
“But the defendant was trying to win,” Schleicher added. “She was not told what to do. He was not going to face his authority. He was trying to win and George Floyd paid for it with his life.
Schleicher also tried to counter stereotypes about black men, telling the jury to ignore Floyd’s addiction to opioids and an officer’s testimony about the suspects’ potential for “superhuman strength.”
“George Floyd is not prosecuted here,” he said.
The trial lasted six weeks, including three weeks to select the jury and three weeks of statement.
A key part of the prosecution’s case was the video of Floyd’s death, played several times. They called 38 witnesses during the trial, including Medaria Arradondo, Minneapolis police chief, who condemned Chauvin’s actions, saying, “It’s not part of our training and certainly not part of our ethics or our values.”
One of the key questions in the case has been what caused Floyd’s death and whether Chauvin’s actions constituted a reasonable use of force. Nelson has blamed his health problems and Floyd’s drug use for his death as he tries to raise reasonable doubts about Chauvin’s guilt.
Deciding on behalf of the prosecution, pulmonologist Martin Tobin and former Hennepin County coroner Lindsey Thomas testified that Floyd died of lack of oxygen.
Andrew Baker, a current forensic doctor in Hennepin County, said the force used by Chauvin and other officers who responded to Floyd’s arrest was more than his own. the weakened and enlarged heart could bear. He was sentenced to death last May for a homicide.
Chauvin did not testify during the trial, invoking his fifth amendment to constitutional law against self-incrimination. A defense witness, Barry Brodd, an expert on uses of force, said Tuesday that Chauvin’s actions were justified and that he was acting “with objective reasonableness following the policy of the Minneapolis police department.”
Four days later, vandals left a pig’s head cut near a home in Santa Rosa, California, where Brodd used to live, “apparently addressed to Mr. Brodd by his witness,” according to the Santa Rosa police department.
David Fowler, a former Maryland forensic doctor, said he thought Floyd died of a heart arrhythmia or irregular heartbeat because his heart was in disrepair when police officers detained him and he was taxed with fentanyl and methamphetamine.
But in the final words to the jurors before they received the judge’s instructions, prosecutor Jerry Blackwell said Floyd did not die because his heart was too big, but “because Mr. Chauvin’s heart was too small.”
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