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Access again an issue at federal trial in Floyd’s killing

Judge cancels closed hearing after media, prosecutors object

By STEVE KARNOWSKI and AMY FORLITI, Associated Press
Published: January 21, 2022, 8:17pm
3 Photos
In this courtroom sketch, U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson presides over a pretrial hearing for three former Minneapolis officers charged in the death of George Floyd, in federal court on Tuesday, Jan.11, 2022 in St. Paul, Minn. Floyd died in May 2020 after Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against his neck as Floyd, who was handcuffed, said he couldn't breathe. Tou Thao, J. Kueng and Thomas Lane are charged that they deprived Floyd of his rights while acting under government authority. Thao and Kueng are also charged with willfully depriving Floyd of his right to be free from unreasonable force by failing to stop fellow Officer Chauvin from pressing his knee into Floyd's neck.
In this courtroom sketch, U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson presides over a pretrial hearing for three former Minneapolis officers charged in the death of George Floyd, in federal court on Tuesday, Jan.11, 2022 in St. Paul, Minn. Floyd died in May 2020 after Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against his neck as Floyd, who was handcuffed, said he couldn't breathe. Tou Thao, J. Kueng and Thomas Lane are charged that they deprived Floyd of his rights while acting under government authority. Thao and Kueng are also charged with willfully depriving Floyd of his right to be free from unreasonable force by failing to stop fellow Officer Chauvin from pressing his knee into Floyd's neck. (Cedric Hohnstadt via AP) (Hennepin County Sheriff's Office) Photo Gallery

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A closed hearing in the federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers in George Floyd’s killing was canceled Friday after prosecutors and the media objected, the second time in days that access to the proceedings became an issue.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson scheduled the conference on the admissibility of some evidence that attorneys for Tou Thao, J. Kueng and Thomas Lane sought to block. After prosecutors and news media objected, Magnuson canceled the hearing and met with attorneys in chambers instead.

No details of the meeting were immediately released.

Opening statements are set for Monday in the trial of the three officers, who are broadly charged in federal court with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority as Derek Chauvin used his knee to pin the Black man to the street for 9½ minutes on May 25, 2020. The videotaped killing triggered worldwide protests, violence and a reexamination of racism and policing.

Media groups earlier this week raised concerns about restrictions on journalists and spectators in the courtroom. Magnuson, citing the coronavirus pandemic, initially set aside just two seats for reporters and none for family members during jury selection. He raised that to four seats for reporters during jury selection — the same as planned for the trial phase — but rejected other media requests, including sharing of evidence exhibits.

Leita Walker, an attorney for the media groups, said she was “concerned that the court purported to cancel an evidentiary hearing but went forward with a meeting and we don’t know what happened at that meeting.”

The hearing was set to deal with defense motions to exclude certain evidence, including images from videos the day of Floyd’s death; side-by-side exhibits that will play two videos at once; and dispatch and 911 calls, according to a filing Thursday from prosecutors objecting to Friday’s closure.

On Thursday, a jury of 18 people who appeared mostly white was picked for the trial, in contrast to the state court jury that convicted Chauvin of murder and manslaughter last April, a panel that was half nonwhite. This group appears to include a woman of Asian descent among the 12 jurors, and a man of Asian descent among the six alternates. The court declined to provide demographic data.

In objecting to the closure of Friday’s hearing, prosecutors had said neither side had requested the closure.

Walker followed up Friday morning for a coalition of media organizations, including The Associated Press, with the group’s request to the judge to open the proceeding. She wrote that excluding the press and public from an evidentiary hearing amounted to “a closure of the courtroom that violates the First Amendment.”

“Presumably the Court is concerned about publicity surrounding inadmissible evidence. But it is a standard practice to instruct jury members not to listen to or read news reports on the case they are considering” to avoid the outside influence, Walker wrote.

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