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Tanzina Vega: I'm Tanzina Vega and you're listening to The Takeaway. This week, Jury selection concluded for the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who's charged in the murder of George Floyd. After a long, complicated jury selection process, the trial itself is set to begin on Monday. The recent jury selection process had been delayed mostly because of a legal dispute on whether a third-degree murder charge would be reinstated for Chauvin and recently there was another dispute on what type of past evidence would be allowed in the trial. For the coming weeks, we'll be periodically checking in with reporters in Minneapolis who are covering the trial.

Helping us today is Brandt Williams, a correspondent for Minnesota Public Radio News, covering public safety, criminal justice, and racial disparities. Brandt, thanks for joining us.

Brandt Williams: I'm glad to be here.

Tanzina: This week the jury was selected but it was delayed. Tell us about the delay, what happened there? I know the judge was wanting another juror, but there were questions about a certain juror, break it down for us.

Brandt Williams: Sure. As you mentioned, there was the initial delay. They didn't even start on time as far as jury selection, they took that one day because of that dispute over the third-degree murder charge but after that got sorted out by a court decision, then they went ahead with the jury selection. Now, one of those delays, or at least hiccups in the process, came after news was reported of a settlement between the Floyd family and the city of Minneapolis, this historic $27 million settlement.

The judge went back, he'd already selected a number of jurors. The judge went back and called seven of those jurors who had already been seated before this news broke and had to ask them, were you exposed to this news? If you were, did it have an effect on you? He found that there were two of those jurors who couldn't put that news aside and so he had to strike them. That was a big setback. The judge was clearly annoyed by all this pre-trial publicity and even made a statement at the end of court one day saying everybody needs to stop talking about this. He was--

Tanzina: This being that the settlement you're talking about.

Brandt Williams: This settlement, yes, and he was pointing his comments mostly at the city of Minneapolis. He was very frustrated that the city brought this up. They chose to settle this at this time, right in the middle of jury selection on this high-profile trial. [crosstalk]

Tanzina: Have we heard anything from the city Brandt about the decision to do that because the judge really can't say much about it. It's news, but why did the city choose to announce it right at that time? Is there any word on that?

Brandt Williams: Yes. That question was put to the city attorney, Jim Rowader and he'd said that basically there's no good time to make a settlement of this amount and of this magnitude. He said there was no guarantee that if they had waited several weeks or maybe even a couple months later, that this deal may have not been available but there are people who pushed back on that, who asked the question, "Why didn't the city just announce that they've reached a settlement, but they won't announce it until after the criminal trial?"

Tanzina: That's a good question. Did they have any answer to that? Or saying there's really no good time to do, it feels like a non-answer.

Brandt Williams: This is one of those situations where they're faced in the middle of this large criminal trial and, by the way, the mayor of Minneapolis is running for reelection this year too. I don't know if that was part of his calculations. I don't want to necessarily put that but as journalists, we always keep that in mind when we hear about public officials making high-profile decisions like this.

Tanzina: Brandt, let's talk a little bit about the evidence that will be introduced to the trial. There was a lot of back and forth about what video evidence would be presented. What do we know about what they're presenting regarding Chauvin's past?

Brandt Williams: Right. There's a lot of questions about Chauvin's record as a police officer, that he had been the subject of dozens, or more than a dozen complaints. I've been talking to lawyers about that prospect and basically why this type of evidence will not be presented. The rules of evidence would prohibit what you would call character evidence and that would include past incidents or complaints against Derek Chauvin that were not relevant to what happened on May 25th of last year.

Now, there will be a couple incidents that will be allowed at trial that are based on incidents that Derek Chauvin was involved in. They loosely involve him either being involved in or witnessing an arrest of someone who needed to be restrained and the officers actually controlled this person in a way. In one of those instances, the officers controlled the person who is having an apparent crisis and they moved that person on their side to keep them from possibly dying and that would be a way to, I guess, illustrate the training that officers are given, how they're supposed to react in that situation. That's going to be a part of Chauvin's past that will come out at the trial.

Tanzina: What about evidence regarding George Floyd? I know that there was talk about having some sort of video showing Mr. Floyd in the past. How is that relevant, Brandt, to what the incident is that we all witnessed through video of his death?

Brandt Williams: That's some evidence that came from this May of 2019 arrest. Now, the judge has been very clear about how he wants to narrow the scope of that testimony in that evidence. He will allow a short clip of body camera video from an officer who approaches George Floyd in a car, the officer is pointing a gun at him and the judge will allow the jury to see what transpired between that time when the officer approaches Mr. Floyd, and then Mr. Floyd gets out of the vehicle.

Now, Judge Cahill said he wants to show or at least he will allow the defense to show what physical reaction George Floyd had to having a gun pointed at him after having just drugs, but he said he will not allow the prosecutors to introduce testimony that would maybe opine how Floyd's behaviors could be seen as symptoms of anxiety or claustrophobia during the May 25th arrest. Now, this is all going to be closely watched by-- I can imagine the judge is going to be keeping tight reigns on how these lawyers try to argue, and they're going to walk up to a line perhaps, and the judge is going to make sure that they don't cross it because--

Tanzina: What lies, Brandt, because I feel like when you're present-- myself, I have participated in juries and criminal cases in particular many, many years ago and I'm just wondering that the character references that you're mentioning here, depending on who is seated in the jury could really have an effect on the outcome of this trial if they're presented unnecessarily?

Brandt Williams: Right. Again, that video evidence including the video evidence from last year when Mr. Floyd died to the May of 2019 evidence, it's going to be very impactful. People are going to see things that perhaps they had not seen before that 2019 video. You're right. It does have the potential to really sway jurors to the defense's case and that's something that the prosecutors have been trying to prevent. They've been trying to keep that evidence out of the case, of the testimony.

Tanzina: The trial is going to be televised, what are your thoughts on having the trial be televised? This is something that was a surprise to me, how are folks taking it there?

Brandt Williams: I was surprised as well, but I'm pleased in a way for a couple of different reasons. One is, I just think this will be an educational experience for everyone who decides to tune in. As someone who's covered a lot of trials, you see like the day in and day out types of drudgery even, there are sidebars, there are outside of jury discussions. Sometimes there are lots of objections.

You may be sitting for a while with nothing happening. During one of these sidebar conferences, they turn on some white noise in the courtrooms. You can't actually overhear what they're saying. That's going to be something that the whole public is going to see, and that this is not like TV trials and dramas on TV showing lots of outbursts and objections, so that's not going to happen.

People are going to see that but it will be an odd setup being in the courtroom, not seeing a gallery of spectators, not feeling that buzz of energy that happens when a defendant walks into the courtroom and people stop their side conversations and watch him. It's going to be very strange, but I think this could be a very educational experience for people who decide to tune in.

Tanzina: Of course, I'm imagining that there will be folks limited because of COVID-19. Are there any other differences that we should expect to see because of the pandemic right now?

Brandt Williams: Yes, we're going to see plexiglass barriers between the lawyers and their teams, and between the defense lawyer and Derek Chauvin. The judges are going to be behind plexiglass and the jurors, which you will not see the jurors, but the jurors in the courtroom are all separated into small desks that look like almost school desks and so everybody is going to be spaced and, like I said, there'll be no spectators to be in the courtroom watching.

Tanzina: Brandt Williams is a correspondent for Minnesota Public Radio, covering public safety, criminal justice, and racial disparities. Brandt thanks so much.

Brandt Williams: You're welcome.

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