Well, this is not how the Justice Department had it on the drawing board, but the Civil Rights Division’s highest-profile trials are now taking place simultaneously, in federal district courts in Minnesota and Georgia.
In St. Paul, the trial of three ex-cops implicated in the killing of George Floyd resumed on Monday. The trial had started in earnest two weeks ago but was suspended last Wednesday because one of the defendants tested positive for Covid. The main defendant, Derek Chauvin, has already pled guilty in the case, after being convicted of murder in Minnesota state court last spring.
Meanwhile, jury-selection was to begin today at federal district court in Brunswick, Ga., after plea negotiations between the government and at least two of the three men implicated in the killing of Ahmed Arbery collapsed. As I detailed last week, the Justice Department thought it had an agreement with the two main culprits, the father-and-son tandem of Gregory and Travis McMichael. The deal would have required them to plead guilty to a civil-rights felony and be sentenced to a 30-year prison term (of little consequence, since it would run concurrently with the life-without-parole term they are already serving after being convicted in the Georgia state murder trial).
The Arbery family thus objected because the main benefit of the plea would go to the murderers, who would be immediately transferred to federal prison, which is what they desired. That, not coincidentally, is the same benefit the DOJ gave to Chauvin, whose federal sentence will also run concurrently with the 22-and-a-half-year state murder sentence he’s already serving in the Floyd case. Judge Lisa Godbey Wood was persuaded by the Arbery family and rejected the plea deal, which, because it included an agreed-upon sentence, required the court’s approval under federal rules of criminal procedure.
Obviously, prosecutors were not able to reach an agreement with the McMichaels (or the third defendant, William “Roddie” Bryan) that would be acceptable to the court and the family, so the case is proceeding to trial. Given the intense publicity the case has received, it may take some time to select a fair and impartial jury.
When the Floyd civil-rights trial resumed today, the jury heard testimony from an expert pulmonologist, Harvard-trained David Systrom. In testimony that appears to have echoed the state-trial testimony of another expert, Dr. Martin Tobin, Dr. Systrom opined that Floyd died because of the pressure that three arresting police officers — Chauvin, along with defendants J. Alex Kueng and Thomas Lane — placed on his back as they pressed him down on the hard asphalt of the street, while the other former cop on trial, Tao Thao, held back agitated bystanders.
For what it’s worth, I explained in a column last week why I believe the Justice Department’s civil-right case is flawed. Putting aside my problems with the legal theory, I believe Dr. Tobin’s testimony in the state trial — and now, as reported by some media, Dr. Systrom’s testimony in the federal trial — would support alleging that the four officers were jointly culpable as principals. The Justice Department’s indictment theorizes that Chauvin alone applied excessive force to Floyd, while Keung and Tao are guilty for having failed to prevent him from doing so, and Lane is not charged at all in the excessive-force count, even though he was pressing down on Floyd. That makes no sense to me — it seems like the feds were swayed by the horrible optic of Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck, even though the expert testimony is that the neck pressure was much less important than the back pressure on the lungs.
The prosecution’s presentation of evidence in the Floyd civil-rights trial, over which Judge Paul Magnuson is presiding, is scheduled to continue Tuesday.