Twelve jurors and two alternates will sit through a four-week trial, then will likely be sequestered in a hotel during deliberations. But on Friday, with 13 jurors seated, Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill announced that in case one of the others drops out before opening statements begin on March 29, he wanted a 15th juror ready. That person, an accountant, was selected on Tuesday.
"I'm still not going to release the jury pool until the jury is sworn, on the off chance we still have to pick some alternates," Judge Cahill told attorneys on Tuesday. "But I'm hopeful, since it's only a few days, that we'll have 14 people show up and those 14 will be seated and sworn."
Judge Cahill's caution is earned; he's already lost some jurors. One week into jury selection for the trial, the city of Minneapolis announced it had reached a $27 million civil settlement with the Floyd family. The court conducted additional questioning with the seven jurors who'd already been seated, and two were excused after saying the size of the settlement seemed to indicate Chauvin's guilt.
But even with that hiccup, after two weeks of questioning, attorneys agreed on 15 people for the panel. Nine of the seated jurors are white, two are multiracial, and four are Black. Nine are women and six are men. If all 15 show up on Monday, the last one seated, a white man, will be excused.
Attorneys for both sides had anticipated jury selection would be difficult. Floyd's death drew international attention after a bystander's cellphone video showed Chauvin pinning his neck for more than eight minutes, as Floyd — who was suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill — begged Chauvin to stop, said he couldn't breathe and lost consciousness. The video of a Black man gasping for breath under the knee of a white police officer was viewed by millions and rekindled a nationwide racial justice movement last summer.
Potential jurors answered an extensive questionnaire about their knowledge of the case, their feelings about Black Lives Matter protests and their opinions on racism in the criminal justice system. During two weeks of questioning, Steven Schleicher, partner at the Minneapolis law firm Maslon LLP working pro bono for the state, sometimes asked jurors their opinions on coronavirus stay-at-home orders, football players kneeling during the national anthem, and the siege of the U.S. Capitol in January.
Nearly 40 of those questioned were struck for cause, most of them because they said they couldn't be impartial in the case.
Among 326 members of the jury pool who filled out their questionnaire, only 10 had positive feelings about Chauvin, and 214 had a negative view of him, according to a court filing from Chauvin's defense attorney, Eric Nelson of Halberg Criminal Defense.
The road to seating the panel was made even bumpier on March 12, when Minneapolis announced the settlement that ended the Floyd family's civil claims accusing the city of unconstitutional policing practices that ultimately led to Floyd's killing.
A slew of defense motions followed. Judge Cahill denied Nelson's requests to delay or move the venue of the trial, and a bid to sequester jurors immediately, but he gave each side additional peremptory challenges. The defense got three more strikes, for a total of 18, and the prosecution got one more, for a total of 10. Neither side used all its strikes, however. By the end of jury selection, the defense had four left and the prosecution had two remaining.
Judge Cahill was initially skeptical when Nelson first raised concerns that the deal would taint the pool.
"I'll be very honest, when that was first brought up by the defense, I thought they were overstating it," the judge said last week, adding he was "a little shocked" when he realized he'd have to dismiss two jurors.
Judge Cahill indicated on Tuesday that he would like to seat the 15th juror but that coronavirus-fueled distancing measures leave only enough room for 14.
They will hear opening statements Monday morning.
--Editing by Brian Baresch.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
