After one of the officers' defense lawyers said that prosecutors coerced the medical examiner who conducted George Floyd's autopsy, a Minnesota judge on May 13 postponed the trial of three former Minneapolis officers involved in the arrest of Floyd last year.
According to court documents, J. Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao will stand trial on March 7, 2022, a six-month break from the previous date. Per The Epoch Times, local media reported that Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill said at a pretrial hearing in Minneapolis that he needed to allow federal prosecutors time to investigate a case against the three men.
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Trial for 3 Ex-officers in George Floyd case hits a snag
The trio and Derek Chauvin, the other former officer involved in George Floyd's case, were charged by a federal grand jury last week. The judge believes the officers violated Floyd's constitutional rights when they handcuffed him on the ground outside of Cup Foods, where he was accused of using counterfeit money. Floyd eventually stopped breathing and was pronounced dead a short time later.
Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter and was convicted in April. He may be sentenced to up to 40 years in jail. Lane, Keung, and Thao have been charged with aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter. The first offense holds a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.
The federal charge on which the former officers were indicted carries a maximum life sentence in prison, with the death penalty being possible in some circumstances. According to KARE 11, a state prosecutor told Cahill that he disagreed with delaying the trial until next year and wanted it to start in August.
Cahill also heard two other matters. Lane's lawyer requested that the judge order Minnesota officials to produce all use-of-force files from the past 50 years "where force was used by a Minneapolis police officer in making an arrest and another officer, either verbally or physically intervened in the use of force by his or her fellow officer."
The trial's postponement was announced at the pretrial motions hearing on Thursday. The delay was decided by the defense lawyers representing all three former officers. The state, through Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank, opposed the delay. At Thursday's motions hearing, it was unclear who had requested the amendment initially, as per Daily Mail.
After media reports that Chauvin had agreed to plead guilty a year before and claims that they haven't revealed details regarding the suspected intimidation of a witness, Cahill weighed a motion that prosecutors be sanctioned on Thursday. Lane, Kueng, and Thao's lawyers have asked the court to order trial prosecutors to file affidavits under oath, stating that they are not responsible for the media release. Thao's lawyer also claimed in a late Wednesday filing that the Hennepin County medical examiner was forced to include "neck compression" in his findings and that prosecutors were aware of it.
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