These 12 People Will Decide If Derek Chauvin Goes to Prison for Murdering George Floyd

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When Derek Chauvin goes on trial Monday, prosecutors will have to convince six white and six non-white jurors that the former Minneapolis cop who kneeled on George Floyd’s neck intended to harm him.  

The defense, on the other hand, will try to pin the 46-year-old Black man’s death on his existing health conditions and history of drug use.

Over the last two weeks, attorneys from both sides agreed on 12 jurors and three alternates to determine the fate of Chauvin, who faces a total of 50 years in prison for third- and second-degree murder charges and second-degree manslaughter charges. During that process, prosecutors and the defense alike dismissed potential jurors who sided too strongly with either Black Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter ideologies.

“There’s really no other way to fully put what happened between Derek Chauvin and George Floyd in context without considering the fact that this was a white officer who has this interaction with a Black person,” Andrew Gordon, deputy director of community legal services at the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis, told VICE News. “A Black potential juror was far more likely to have had a negative interaction with police that would have informed their ability to be impartial.”

In an attempt to ensure a fair trial, the defense also focused on who had seen the bystander and body camera footage showing Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck as he repeatedly says “I can’t breathe” and calls out for his mother. But Chauvin’s attorneys also scored a sizable victory: convincing the judge to allow footage of Floyd’s prior drug arrest, one year before his death, as evidence.

Arguments in the case, which are expected to last up to four weeks, will begin on March 29. Here’s what you need to know so far. 

The jury will consist of: four white women, two white men, three Black men, one Black woman, two multi-racial women, and three alternates—in case any of the chosen jurors can’t participate. 

Although no one was obviously eliminated because of their race, the defense systematically excluded jurors who reflected the lived experiences of being a person of color, like Floyd, according to Gordon. 

On day eight of jury selection, for example, the defense dismissed a Black potential juror who said he lived in the neighborhood where Floyd was killed. He said he recalled how local officers would drive through the streets blaring Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” following arrests and shootings in the area.

Despite him repeatedly saying the incident would not impact his ability to be impartial, the defense struck him from serving on the jury, citing bias against the Minneapolis Police Department.

The challenge of getting Chauvin a fair trial also became clear. Jurors were asked if they had participated in protests after Floyd’s death or seen the video of his death. Because of the widespread media coverage, however, the defense struggled to find someone who hadn’t formed some opinion of the case in the nine months prior.

On day four of jury selection, four potential jurors said that they couldn’t be impartial after viewing the videos because of how they impacted their lives. One of those jurors went as far as saying she couldn’t unsee the footage or presume Chauvin’s innocence.

The city’s record $27 million settlement with the Floyd family, announced on March 12, also played a significant role in the makeup of the jury. On day eight of the trial, two seated jurors were excused after they said the city’s settlement changed their ability to be impartial.

Chauvin’s defense quickly motioned for additional strikes, a delay, a relocation of the trial, and the immediate sequestration of the jurors. He also called the timing of the settlement’s announcement suspicious. Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill ultimately granted the defense three additional strikes but denied the other requests.

Prior to the start of the trial, court documents signaled the defense planned to focus on Floyd’s health and drug use. The Hennepin County medical examiner found the existence of hypertension, a sickle cell disease trait, and evidence of Floyd’s COVID-19 diagnosis at the time of his death, as well as traces of the drug fentanyl. The report, however, ruled Floyd’s death a homicide and stressed that his drug use wasn’t the cause.

In a motion separate from jury selection, the defense convinced Judge Cahill to allow police body camera footage from a May 2019 incident that shows Floyd ingesting painkillers and pleading with officers to leave him alone. 

But only parts of the video can be presented in court: cops confronting Floyd, him rapidly taking drugs, his recorded blood pressure at the time, and statements to the paramedic on the scene.  

The judge said the video would be admissible as precedent of how Floyd reacted when confronted by police officers. But the rest of the video, which chronicles Floyd’s emotional behavior in the presence of police, should not be a factor in this case, the judge said.

“[The] argument is that Floyd had a modus operandi for getting arrested that involved ingesting drugs,” said Andrew Wilson, a partner at Wilson Criminal Defense and a former colleague of Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson. “Ingesting controlled substances makes a person arguably more unpredictable, meaning the use of force and restraining that person could be then argued to be more reasonable.”

After months of uncertainty, Cahill ruled on day four of jury selection that prosecutors could add another charge against Chauvin: third-degree murder.

Third-degree murder charges are typically reserved for crimes that endangered others and not just one person, while second-degree murder is used in situations where a single person is affected by the actions of the accused. Prosecutors will have to prove that Chauvin endangered the lives of others when he took control of the police encounter with Floyd. 

The charge will also give prosecutors the opportunity to convict Chauvin regardless of intent, as third-degree charges don’t take into account the intent of the harmful action.

“The more opportunities the prosecution has to secure a conviction, especially given the tenor and dynamics of this case specifically, the more likely that they do secure a conviction. That’s just statistical,” Wilson said. “But I would hesitate to say this new charge will make things easier or harder for prosecutors.”

Because Chauvin wasn’t firing a gun, however, the defense may be able to argue that he endangered only Floyd with his actions.

The additional third-degree charge carries a penalty of up to 25 years in prison. If the jury finds Chauvin guilty of both murder charges, he will likely only face the more severe punishment of 40 years in prison associated with second-degree murder.