A lawyer for the former Minneapolis police officer who pressed his knee against George Floyd’s neck wants to bring up Floyd’s history of drug use and a previous arrest in an attempt to show jurors that Floyd was partially guilty of his own death .
A prosecutor says Floyd’s past is irrelevant and that Derek Chauvin’s lawyer is trying to defame Floyd to excuse his client’s actions. Chauvin is charged with murder and wrongful death.
Now it’s up to Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill to decide the crucial question of how much the high-profile trial will revolve around Floyd’s own actions on May 25, when the black man was pronounced dead after Chauvin, who is white , pressed his knee against his neck for about eight minutes. Floyd’s death, recorded in a video widely viewed by onlookers, sparked weeks of sometimes violent protests across the country and led to a national trial on racial justice.
The judge previously rejected Chauvin’s attempt to tell the jury about Floyd’s arrest in May 2019 – a year before his fatal encounter with Chauvin – but heard new arguments on Tuesday from both sides. He said he would judge the request on Thursday.
Defense attorney Eric Nelson argued that new evidence makes the previous arrest admissible: drugs were found in December during a second search for the car Floyd was in, and were found in a search in January of the vehicle in which the four officers tried to place Floyd .
He also argued that the similarities between the encounters are relevant: both times, while the police drew their guns and struggled to get Floyd out of the car, he called his mother, claimed he had been shot before and cried, and put on what looked like be pills in your mouth. Both searches found drugs in the cars. The officers noticed a white residue outside his mouth both times, although this has not been explained.
In the first arrest, several opioid and cocaine pills were found. An autopsy showed that Floyd had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system when he died.
“The similarities are incredible. Exactly the same behavior in two incidents, almost a year apart, ”said Nelson.
Paramedics who examined Floyd in 2019 warned him that his blood pressure was dangerously high, putting him at risk for a heart attack or stroke, and took him to a hospital for examination. Nelson argued that it shows that Floyd knew that swallowing drugs could result in a trip to the hospital instead of prison.
But prosecutor Matthew Frank argued that the evidence from the 2019 arrest was damaging. He said the defense wants this as a secret way of portraying Floyd as a bad person. He called it “the desperation of the defense to defame Mr. Floyd’s character, to show that what he fought against opioid addiction like so many Americans do, is really evidence of bad character”.
And he argued that the only thing relevant in Floyd’s death is how he was treated by Chauvin and the other officers.
“What these cops were dealing with is what they were responsible for,” said Frank. “What is relevant to this case is what they knew on the spot at the moment.”
Cahill said he would prevent the defense “too quickly” from suggesting at the trial that Floyd was unfriendly for using drugs.
“You don’t just dirty someone who died in those circumstances as a defense,” he said. But he said he would weigh the defense’s argument that the alleged drug use during the 2019 prison that led to “a hypertensive emergency” is relevant to what may have caused Floyd’s death in 2020.
“I think this is the only relevance I see,” said Cahill.
A legal expert said he saw legitimate reasons for Cahill to allow 2019 arrest at the trial, given the evidence found in the car tracking searches. But he said he could also unfairly harm the jury against Floyd.
“The problem is, you can’t do one without doing the other,” said Ted Sampsell-Jones, professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. “The evidence has some legitimate relevance, but it also carries significant potential for unjust prejudice. It is a problem of difficult evidence that Judge Cahill will have to balance carefully. “
Michael Brandt, a local defense attorney, said the new evidence would reinforce the argument that Floyd had a “propensity to take pills when he was arrested” and that he knew it could be a way to stay out of prison. That may be enough for jurors to stop convicting Chauvin on the most serious charges, Brandt said.
The issue of Floyd’s drug use ended up in the jury’s choice, with prosecutors assessing the attitudes of potential jurors.
One person chosen for the jury, a black man in his 30s, said he did not judge drug users more severely than others.
“My opinion of them is no different than my opinion of anyone else. It is just something they are struggling with, possibly trying to overcome, ”he said.
Another, a white man in his 30s, said he heard news that Floyd may have been under the influence of drugs, but when asked what he thought he didn’t think it should affect the case.
“Whether you are under the influence of drugs does not determine whether you should be alive or dead,” he said.
Nine jurors were seated on Monday, including five whites, a multiracial, two blacks and a Latino. The judges consist of six men and three women and are between 20 and 50 years old.
No new judges were selected on Tuesday, with several fired for difficult reasons, including a substitute teacher and a woman who has a child under the age of 1. A man was fired because he sees daily headlines about the case in a software application job. for a major news organization, and another after continuing to explain that he could only try, but not guarantee that he could presume Chauvin’s innocence.
The selection process continues until 14 people – 12 to deliberate and two alternates – are seated. Opening statements are expected by March 29, unless the process has not been completed by then.
Cahill is considering a defense motion to postpone the trial after Nelson argued that a $ 27 million deal for the Floyd family – announced by the city of Minneapolis last week in the middle of the jury’s choice – unfairly contaminated the jury group.
Cahill planned on Wednesday to interview again the seven jurors who were seated up to that point to determine whether they could continue to serve.
Three other ex-cops face a trial in August on charges of helping and encouraging second-degree murder and wrongful death.