Jury selection begins in Derek Chauvin trial. What did the first day reveal about legal strategy, human perception?

MINNEAPOLIS — Lawyers began the painstaking process of questioning potential jurors Tuesday in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, with a focus on their knowledge of the case, attitudes toward the police and willingness to keep an open mind.

The court heard from nine prospective jurors and seated three.

Chauvin, who is white, is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, a Black man, last May. Prosecutors contend Floyd, 46, was killed by Chauvin’s knee, compressed against Floyd’s neck for more than 9 minutes while he was handcuffed and pinned to the pavement.

Here are the key takeaways from the first day of jury selection:

Three jurors selected were eager to serve

All three of the jurors selected said that they felt that serving on a jury is their civic duty and emphasized the importance of the case.

The first person to become a member of the jury, an outdoorsy chemist, said he had not seen the video of Floyd’s death, but recognized “the gravity of this trial” when he received his jury summons. He said he wanted to participate and would be “good, fair, impartial.” 

When asked by Chauvin’s defense attorney Eric Nelson if he would describe himself as someone who would intentionally try to get out of jury duty or onto a jury, he responded  “My answers were truthful. That’s how I would describe my answers.”

Some experts, such as John Burris, a civil rights attorney who represented Rodney King, said he would be uneasy about people who are eager to get onto a jury. “That means they may have deep-seated notions about it. They may have alternative plans.”

He added: “There are a lot of cases of jurors in famous cases writing books and becoming celebrities.” 

King, a Black man, was infamously beaten by white Los Angeles police officers 30 years ago while a neighbor recorded it with his Sony camcorder.

Burris said that police cases flip the script for jurors. Instead of being suspicious of the defense and predisposed to support the prosecution, in police cases they may be predisposed to favor the police.  

“The prosecution has the most to lose in this case, even though they have a lot of jurors disposed toward them,” Burris said. “It only takes one to get a hung jury.” 

Under questioning, the outdoorsy chemist repeatedly revised his earlier responses to a questionnaire, which seemed to support harsher views toward the criminal justice system, to a more neutral stance. He “somewhat agreed” that officers might cover up use of force crimes on the questionnaire, but revised that to “no opinion.”

“He’s clearly a very good juror for the prosecution,” said Ted Sampsell-Jones, a professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in neighboring St. Paul.

He added that jurors may be under oath, but they still may bend the truth.

“Some people don’t want to be involved and it’s very easy to get off of the jury,” Sampsell-Jones said. “But in a case like this, there are clearly a lot of people who really want to get on the jury. And it’s relatively easy to do that, too, with just a little bit of lying.”

The second juror to be seated is a woman with an uncle who is a police officer in northern Minnesota. She said she’s watched the video of Floyd’s death only one time and was “super excited” to be called for jury duty.

The final juror selected, an auditor who is friends with a police officer, also said he was “slightly” disappointed he didn’t get to participate in jury deliberations after serving as an alternate on an unrelated jury several years ago.

“I was looking forward to it. I think it’s an important part of our society,” he said.

Black Lives Matter questions bring in the ‘undercurrent of race’

Burris said it was also important to not forget about the “undercurrent of race” during jury selection.

“They’re doing some of that with Black Lives Matter,” Burris said. But “this is a difficult one for the prosecution because they want people to forget about race and make decisions based on facts, on what happened. The other people may have a view that this is a Black guy doing bad stuff, the defense might get into the drugs found in his system, the drugs found in the car. These are negatives they (the prosecution) have to get past.” 

All three jurors that were seated expressed somewhat unfavorable views towards Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter. 

The first juror selected, the outdoorsy chemist, said he was “somewhat favorable” to Black Lives Matter in his questionnaire, but appeared to walk that back, saying “I don’t love the organization itself, too extreme.” He also said he was “somewhat unfavorable” of Blue Lives Matter in questionnaire, but walked that back too.

The second juror selected said she believes both Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter have “turned into a propaganda scheme by companies” to sell products.

The final juror selected said he has some problems with the organization but he does “believe black lives matter.”

Multiple potential jurors said they were concerned about security

Several potential jurors who were not selected to serve expressed concerns about their safety during the trial.

A grandfather who manages a company said it was his first time being called up as a juror. He said he wouldn’t feel comfortable having his name released publicly until six months after a verdict.

“It’s more from a safety, security standpoint,” he said. “I just wouldn’t want any issues or harm to come to my wife or my family.”

Because of concerns about juror safety and the publicity of the trial, jurors are anonymous until after the trial. A judge will decide when their names can be released.

One 19-year-old prospective juror said on his questionnaire that he did not want to be part of the jury and told lawyers he considered the case “very divisive.”

“This process is making me kind of uncomfortable and is just a lot to take in,” he said before ultimately being excused by the judge. “It’s making me anxious.”

Nelson tries to find open minded jurors

Nelson, Chauvin’s defense attorney, grilled jurors on their opinions about the case, his client, the Black Lives Matter movement and law enforcement. He attempted to determine if potential jurors were open to having their opinions changed.

Nelson started out by trying to get to know each juror, asking what they would want him to know if they met at a party or social outing and their initial reactions to being summoned.

Joseph Daly, a professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, said Nelson is “both looking for biases, but most of what he’s doing is educating the potential jurors about his case and he’s also ingratiating the potential jurors in a very professional manner, by being very nice, very kind, paying close attention, listening, responding.”

Years ago, Daly taught Nelson trial skills in law school.

Nelson asked many potential jurors to imagine how they might decide who is telling the truth during a dispute between two parties at work or home. He also asked potential jurors if they had ever been in a situation where they found themselves proven wrong.

“He’s telling them, there’s different ways to look at things, there’s always two sides to a question,” Daly said. “He’s laying the groundwork for his approach to looking at this videotape. I just know they’re going to show this videotape as much as possible, especially the prosecution…so he’s getting them ready for this.”

In this screen grab from video, defense attorney Eric Nelson questions a potential juror as Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill presides over jury selection in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis. Chauvin is charged in the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd. (Photo: AP)

Both Nelson and attorney Steve Schleicher, for the prosecution, asked potential jurors to expand on their answers to the 13-page questionnaire sent out months ago.

The questionnaire provides lots of background information on jurors, such as whether they are “FOX people or MSNBC people,” Burris said, which can point to their mindset and biases.

This is also a case, Burris said, where it’s important to know “what their experience is with medicine and with drugs, and their attitudes toward it,” Burris said. Because the potential jurors may have strong positive or negative associations with drugs, he said.  

“It’s a chess game too, you’re trying not to expose the people you really want,” Burris said, by seeming to be more negative toward them during questioning, for example.

He said that typically when jurors are selected, there is an entire panel that’s examined at one time. The jurors are being selected one at a time due to the coronavirus. 

But typically, “we’re looking for sheeps and goats,” Burris said. “Who’s going to be the goat for us, and the sheep for us. The goat is the decision maker, the sheep is the follower…You know in a jury there are some people you have to persuade, while the other can be persuaded.” 

Burris said that by selecting three jurors independently of the other, “the question is how do you know how they relate to the other people who are going to be there. And that becomes a challenge.” 

Because the selected jurors were sent home, “that kind of undermines what you really want, and that’s the relationship between the jurors. You want to know how these jurors are going to relate to each other.” 

Burris called jury selection “an art form” and said the attorneys would be listening and watching very closely. 

“The prosecution can’t make any mistakes. They only need one really to hang it up” and end up with a hung jury, Burris said. That’s also why the defense I looking for a “strong willed person to do that” 

Another prime juror for the defense is a “lone wolf” or, even better, is a strong-willed person who can persuade others, Burris said. 

Defense quickly using its peremptory challenges

Nelson, who started his morning with 15 peremptory challenges, had 13 left by lunchtime while the prosecution used one of its nine in the afternoon — with nearly three weeks allotted for jury selection remaining.

“It simply points to the fact of how difficult it’s going to be to select an impartial jury on this case. We all knew that going in, and you’re seeing that play out,” said Sarah Davis, executive director of the nonprofit Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis. 

She said that it’s the job of lawyers to “ask questions in a way that gets folks to speak freely and openly about their perspective” so they can be ruled out, if necessary, for cause. 

Nelson used his first peremptory strike on the first juror, a mother of three from Mexico who said on her questionnaire that she wanted to “give her opinion on the unjust death of George Floyd.” The defense made a challenge for cause based on her English proficiency which the judge denied.

Sampsell-Jones said it was “unfair” that the defense attorney had to burn a peremptory challenge on the Latino woman who spoke with a strong accent and had trouble understanding legal jargon.

“She clearly could not have served as a juror,” Sampsell-Jones said. Though the court could provide a translator for her, “it would make things extraordinarily slow” to translate for a single juror every aspect of the trial.

Sampsell-Jones said that so early in the process of jury selection Nelson has only a little sense of what’s coming from the written questionnaire.

“It’s just a hard thing,” Sampsell-Jones said. “He may have people he’s more worried about coming down the road.” 

Nelson might have decided not to use a peremptory on them to “save them (the defense) from someone who might be worse.”

Burris said lawyers generally don’t want to rehabilitate a prospective juror who could be bad for them, but it’s also so early in jury selection that the attorney might think he or she is as good as anyone that’s going to come later. 

Batson challenge raises issue of race 

Prosecutors raised a Batson challenge when the defense struck the fourth prospective juror, a Hispanic man originally from Southern California who does martial arts jiu-jitus and Muay Thai. 

A Batson challenge is made by one party in a case to the other party’s use of peremptory challenges to eliminate potential jurors on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity or religion. The fourth juror was the second Latino potential juror struck by the defense Tuesday.

Judge Peter Cahill upheld the strike because the defense had raised a “race-neutral” reason for striking the martial artist. The judge said that based on the potential juror had formed opinions about the restraint used by police and would need to see his opinion proven wrong, improperly shifting the burden of proof to the defense.

In this image from video, Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill presides over pretrial motions before jury selection in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis. Chauvin is charged in the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd. (Photo: Court TV, via AP, Pool)

The prosecution persisted with its Batson challenge still. Such a challenge can be used to win a new trial.

Some community advocates in Minneapolis are concerned about the racial composition of the jury, said Davis, of the Legal Rights Center.

Hennepin County, where Minneapolis is located, is mostly white, and so are its juries.

“Nobody is bias free,” said civil rights attorney Connie Rice. “People come with their opinions. The question is can you set those aside and engage in the process of a criminal trial jury. That’s what you’re trying to evaluate. And every lawyer has a different way of sussing that out. And sometimes you just have to hope that once they’re sitting in that box and part of the group that” they’ll focus on the evidence. 

She added, “in highly politicized trials, it’s even harder.” 

Rice said that the Batson challenge was interesting because “it’s usually the defense attorney raising the Batson, because usually the defendant is a minority and not a cop. This is not your normal framework for Batson.” 

“The whole trial, the air we breathe in this case, is about race, there’s no escaping it,” Rice said. “The question is, whether the job is to keep race from being determinant or playing a disproportionate role in the objective evaluation of the facts and the law. You’re not going to take race out of this, you’re just going to have to make sure it doesn’t drive any of the procedures because then it’s not a fair trial.” 

She added: “Race is in the background and foreground, but it can’t be allowed to drive the dynamics of the courtroom.”

Follow Tami Abdollah and N’dea Yancey-Bragg, who are covering the Chauvin trial, on Twitter: @latams and @NdeaYanceyBragg

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