MINNEAPOLIS (CN) — Derek Chauvin’s defense attorney has moved for a new trial, alleging a bevy of errors in the former Minneapolis police officer’s murder conviction for the killing of George Floyd.
Defense attorney Eric Nelson filed a motion Tuesday afternoon alleging prosecutorial and jury misconduct along with errors on the part of Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill and “a verdict that is contrary to law.”
Nelson sought to rehash several issues discussed at trial, including Cahill’s denial of his request for a change of venue, a pre-verdict motion for a new trial on the basis that publicity during the trial tainted the proceedings, allegations of prosecutorial misconduct and the decision not to order testimony from Floyd’s friend Morries Hall, who invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid testifying.
Discussions of publicity took up the bulk of the motion. Chauvin’s trial was the first trial broadcast live in Minnesota’s history, and was covered heavily by national and international media. Floyd’s death also sparked protests and riots in the early summer of 2020, and protests continued throughout the trial around the Hennepin County Courthouse and, after the mid-trial police killing of Daunte Wright, the nearby Brooklyn Center Police Department.
“Such publicity included post-testimony, but predeliberation, intimidation of the defense’s expert witnesses, from which the jury was not insulated. Not only did such acts escalate the potential for prejudice in these proceedings, they may result in a far-reaching chilling effect on defendants’ ability to procure expert witness—especially in high-profile cases, such as those of Mr. Chauvin’s codefendants—to testify on their behalf,” Nelson wrote in the motion.
He added, “The publicity here was so pervasive and so prejudicial before and during this trial that it amounted to a structural defect in the proceedings.”
At four pages, Nelson's motion was sparse on details. He is asking for extra time from Cahill to file a brief explaining his arguments more fully.
A spokesman for Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office, which prosecuted the case, was brief in dismissing Nelson’s arguments. "The court has already rejected many of these arguments and the State will vigorously oppose them,” Deputy Cheif of Staff John Stiles said.
Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas' law school in Minneapolis, said such motions are standard practice in Minnesota after every conviction and that its timing one day before the deadline was probably not connected to a social media furor over pictures of juror Brandon Mitchell at last summer’s March on Washington.
Mitchell is the only juror who deliberated in Chauvin’s trial who has come forward publicly. After he first did so last week, a picture of Mitchell and two cousins surfaced on social media from an event Mitchell said was to commemorate the 57th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. Mitchell is shown wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt and hat, with King’s face and the words “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks” on the shirt.
Mitchell said that the event was not focused on Floyd. On a juror questionnaire he filled out as part of jury selection, he responded “no” to two questions: “Did you, or someone close to you, participate in any of the demonstrations or marches against police brutality that took place in Minneapolis after George Floyd’s death?” and “other than what you have already described above, have you, or anyone close to you, participated in protests about police use of force or police brutality?”
Moran said that Mitchell’s attendance at the march could give Nelson a strong enough argument for juror misconduct for Cahill to call a hearing, but she otherwise didn’t see much of merit in the motion.
