police officers arrested for the murder of George Floyd


After Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Wednesday that he has filed charges against the three other former police officers who were on the scene when George Floyd died, the former officers were detained.
Ellison will charge him with willful manslaughter and also incriminate three other officers , senator and former Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar tweeted.
This is another “important step to do justice,” she said.
Thomas Lane and Tou Thao were booked into the Hennepin County Jail around 5 p.m. local time. While J. Alexander Kueng turned himself in in the early afternoon, his attorney Thomas Plunkett told CNN .
Specifically, the three former police officers were formally accused of assisting Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, in the commission of the murder. All four officers have already been fired from the police.
The charges against Chauvin will also be toughened: He is now charged with second-degree murder – previously he was in the third – as Minnesota Senator and former Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar said in a publication.
This move powerfully marks a week unprecedented in modern American history, in which large-scale, largely peaceful, protests took place in communities of all sizes, but were rocked by outbreaks of violence, including attacks deadly to officers, rampant robberies and arson in some places.
Last Wednesday, on a visit to a makeshift shrine on the corner of Minneapolis where Floyd died, his family had again requested that Lane, Kueng and Thao be detained, a claim echoed by their lawyer.
Forensic conclusion
The two autopsies carried out on George Floyd (the officer and the independent) have yielded the same conclusion: his death at the hands of police officers a week ago was a homicide.
They differ, however, in what caused the murder; While the autopsy contracted by the family points to a death by “suffocation”, that of the county coroner speaks of a “cardiorespiratory arrest” that occurred while he was immobilized.
Be that as it may, the coincidence of both autopsies in the homicide tightens the siege on the four ex-police officers involved, whose prosecution is today the main claim of the racial protests.
After releasing the independent autopsy, Floyd’s family members demanded that Dereck Chauvin be extended the charge of first-degree murder. Regarding the rest of the police officers involved, they asked that they be prosecuted “everything the law allows”.
Q1) Genuine question, how do they find jurors for a case this high profile?
Can only speak to my jurisdiction, but in high profile cases a detailed questionnaire is sent to thousands of prospective jurors. The questionnaire is drafted by the Judge w/input from both parties (State and Defendant). The majority are automatically disqualified and you end up with a pool of a few hundred. Then, before the actual jury selection, those who are still in the pool are individually questioned (aka individual voir dire). This allows the attorneys to ask specific questions re: fairness w/o poisoning the entire pool when somebody inevitably volunteers some fucked up point of view. From there, those that remain move on to the regular jury selection process.
Also, it is okay to be aware of the case. The Court isn’t realistically looking for people who have never heard of George Floyd, but people who have the ability to (ideally) put any knowledge they may have aside and judge the accused w/o bias.
Source: am lawyer, have defended high profile cases