By Aaron Miller-
A Minnesota judge on Thursday has rejected prosecutors’ request to put a 48-hour hold on filings in the criminal cases of four Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd s death.
Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill’s rejection was based on a natural lag in the court filing system, which he said gives prosecutors enough time to see filings and, if they choose, request that they be sealed.
Judge Cahill made reference to filing by defence attorneys that attempted to introduce evidence from a 2019 arrest involving Floyd, including police body-camera video from the arrest.
Prosecutors from the state attorney general’s office successfully delayed public posting of that defence filing as they asked the judge for the 48-hour freeze.
Floyd died on May 25 after senior police officer, Derek Chauvin , pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for several minutes, ignoring his cries not to be able to breathe. A video captured by a bystander went viral, leading to world wide protests against police brutality in America, focused on excessive forced used against black suspects.
Protests by Black Lives matters(BLM) and counter protests by far rights group became a troubling feature of the backclash arising from Flyd’s killing.
Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter; Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao are charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter.
Defense arguments on behalf of the other three charged with manslaughter have included representations claiming that because Chauvin was a senior and much more experience officer in the force, they had limited room for intervention.
Prosecutors argued that the body-camera video from the 2019 arrest could bias potential jurors. They argued that the state “anticipates that filings in this case will involve protected or inadmissible evidence” and that if evidence becomes public, it could unfairly influence public opinion.
The judge said the video simply shows Floyd had been arrested before , adding that this was information “basically everybody already knows,” he said — and that it might even help the state’s case.
Replica
Gray said Floyd’s behaviour on the night he died was “almost an exact replica” of how he acted during the arrest a year earlier. Floyd swallowed drugs, resisted police officers, ignored commands, acted erratically and cried and called out for his mother, Gray said. It should be admissible at trial because it shows Floyd’s modus operandi and discredits prosecutors’ portrayal of Floyd as being scared.