MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Prosecutors revealed Monday evening that they offered plea deals to three former Minneapolis police officers charged with aiding and abetting the murder of George Floyd, but said at a hearing that the defendants rejected them.
Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill held the hearing mostly to consider whether he has the authority to allow live video coverage of the upcoming trial set to begin in June for former Officers Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng. They’re charged with aiding and abetting both manslaughter and murder when former officer Derek Chauvin used his knee to pin Floyd, a Black man, to the pavement for 9 1/2 minutes on May 25, 2020. Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back, Lane held his legs and Thao kept bystanders back.
Lead prosecutor Matthew Frank did not disclose details of the plea offers in open court but said they were identical and were made March 22 after a jury convicted the three in a separate trial in February on federal civil rights charges stemming from Floyd’s death, according to pool reports from inside the courtroom.
Lane’s attorney, Earl Gray, said it was hard for the defense to negotiate when the three still don’t know what their federal sentences will be. The judge in that case has not set a sentencing date, and all three remain free on bail.
Cahill told Frank to file the offers for the record after the jury is seated for the upcoming trial, which is expected to take around eight weeks, including three for jury selection.
Cahill took the rare step of allowing live audiovisual coverage of Chauvin’s murder trial last year, making an exception to the normal rules of Minnesota courts. He cited the extenuating circumstance of the need to balance protecting participants from COVID-19 against the constitutional requirement for a public trial.
Now that the U.S. has entered a new phase of living with the coronavirus, Cahill must decide whether to allow the same sort of access for the trial of Thao, Lane and Kueng. He did not rule during their pretrial hearing, and said he won’t until after the Minnesota Judicial Council — a panel of leading judges and court administrators — meets Thursday to discuss the issue.
Attorney Leita Walker, who represents a coalition of media organizations, including The Associated Press, urged Cahill to allow video coverage again, saying it’s the most reasonable way to ensure public and media access to the trial. She said the public got to watch Chauvin’s trial, and that interest remains high because both involve Floyd’s death. The killing, which was recorded on video, sparked protests around the world and a national reckoning on race.
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