MINNEAPOLIS (CN) — The murder trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd approached its conclusion Monday as attorneys for both gave their closing arguments.
Defense attorney Eric Nelson embarked on a marathon closing, apologizing at various points for being long-winded.
While the prosecution will have a chance at rebuttal, he said, “I get one bite at the apple here.” Nelson had surpassed the two-and-a-half-hour mark when Judge Peter Cahill asked him to take a break for lunch. He finally closed after just shy of three hours of argument.
Floyd’s death and Chauvin’s trial have both involved a substantial amount of video. A video taken by 17-year-old bystander Darnella Frazier at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue sparked protests last May that developed into riots and called for Chauvin and three colleagues’ arrest and charges.
Footage from that video and several other bystanders’ videos were shown at trial along with tape from body cameras and a handful of nearby security cameras, as part of the first televised trial in Minnesota history.
Prosecutor Steve Schleicher urged the jurors to believe what they’d seen.
"It's exactly what you saw with your eyes, it's what you knew. It's what you felt in your gut, and it's what you felt in your heart. This wasn't policing. It was abuse. The defendant is guilty of all three counts. All of them. And there's no excuse,” he said near the end of his closing statement.
Nelson made much more extensive use of video, playing segments of body camera footage and asserting at each point that Chauvin and his fellow officers were behaving reasonably.
“Do not let yourselves be misled by a single still-frame image. Put the evidence in its proper context,” he exhorted, pointing to a frame used frequently by the prosecution where Chauvin is shown picking his shoe just high enough off the ground for light to stream through the gap.
Schleicher asked the jurors to consider the charges of second- and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter individually and separately from broader debates about policing.
“This case is not called the State of Minnesota vs. The Police. It is not. Policing is a noble profession,” Schleicher said. “Make no mistake, this is not a prosecution of the police, this is a prosecution of the defendant. And there’s nothing worse for good police than bad police.”
He pointed out that police owe a duty of care to people in their custody and argued that Chauvin should have made use of his CPR training to address Floyd’s increasing distress.
Schleicher also hit eyewitness testimony hard, particularly the testimony of Frazier’s nine-year-old cousin and that of 61-year-old Charles McMillian. “He called out to George Floyd, he said ‘you can’t win, you can’t win,’” Schleicher said of McMillian. “And George Floyd replied, ‘I’m not trying to win. I’m not trying to win. I’m scared.’ But the defendant was trying to win … and George Floyd paid for it with his life.”
Nelson, meanwhile, reminded jurors that they needed to see Chauvin’s use of force from the perspective of a reasonable officer.
“The evidence in this case has shown over and over again that the defendant is not that officer,” he said, pointing out that all of the state’s several use-of-force experts said Chauvin exhibited excessive force at some point throughout the nine minutes and 29 seconds he restrained Floyd.
Schleicher also talked up the state’s star expert witness, Dr. Martin Tobin. Tobin, a pulmonologist and intensive-care doctor, testified April 8 that Floyd had died of asphyxia as a result of Chauvin’s and his fellow officers’ restraint, demonstrating the mechanics of the lungs and throat as he did so.