Andy Roesgen
May 05, 2021•Update: May 05, 2021
CHICAGO, US
The defense attorney for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin asked late Tuesday for a new trial, two weeks after Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd.
The request for a new trial had been expected, but it comes a day after a social media post emerged from one of the jurors, Brandon Mitchell, who was the first of the voting jurors to give a media interview.
The post shows Mitchell posing with relatives and wearing a T-shirt that reads: "Get your knee off our necks" and "BLM" (Black Lives Matter), along with a picture of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The photo was taken while Mitchell was in Washington, D.C. last year to commemorate King's famous "I Have a Dream” speech at the National Mall.
Chauvin kneeled on Floyd's neck for about nine minutes in May 2020, which touched off world-wide demonstrations.
Mitchell was asked during the trial's jury selection if he had ever participated in the demonstrations that erupted in Minneapolis after Floyd's death and whether he had ever participated in any demonstrations against police use of force, outside of the Floyd case. Mitchell responded "no" to both questions.
Mitchell defended himself on Monday, telling the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper that he had never been to Washington before and took part in the rally last August strictly to honor King.
It was "100% not" a march for Floyd, Mitchell told the newspaper, adding, "It was directly related to MLK's March on Washington from the 60s."
Requests for new murder trials do not usually succeed, but Chauvin's defense attorney, Eric Nelson, cited more than Mitchell's conduct.
Nelson said "errors of law" created "structural defects" in the proceedings: the defense wanted the trial moved to another city and for the jury to be sequestered during the length of the trial. Both requests were denied by Judge Peter Cahill, who said there was no place to find jurors who had not been touched by the case in some way.
The defense also decried the city of Minneapolis' decision to announce a $27 million civil settlement with the family of George Floyd during jury selection.
The defense also wanted a mistrial declared when demonstrations broke out in a Minneapolis suburb after a white police officer shot and killed a mixed-race man during the trial. And at the end of the trial, the defense asked for a mistrial again when a Congresswoman at the scene of that shooting called on demonstrators to get "more confrontational" if the Chauvin verdict did not go their way.
