MINNEAPOLIS — The former police officers charged with killing George Floyd will be tried together next March in a downtown Minneapolis courthouse, though the judge overseeing the criminal case said he would reconsider a change of venue motion if security or other issues arise.

In a series of rulings filed Wednesday but made public Thursday, Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter Cahill denied defense motions for separate trials in which the former officers’ attorneys claimed their clients will be presenting “antagonistic defenses” that could jeopardize their right to a fair trial. Such defenses could include individual officers arguing that they are not responsible for Floyd’s death but alleging that other officers should take responsibility for the slaying.

Cahill denied those motions, arguing in a 51-page ruling that evidence against the former Minneapolis officers – Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao – “will substantially overlap” and that separate trials would be complex and place an “undue burden” on state prosecutors and the court system.

Citing security threats, the judge also ruled that jurors in the case will be publicly anonymous – their names, addresses and other identifying information known only to the court and involved attorneys until after the trial. He also ruled that jurors will be partially sequestered; they will be allowed to sleep in their own homes, but the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office will transport them to the courthouse from a remote meeting point each day to maintain their privacy.

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Top row from left, Derek Chauvin, and J. Alexander Kueng, bottom row from left, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao. Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File

Cahill also decided that there can be audio and video coverage of the trial – against prosecutors’ wishes – because of the anticipated need to maintain social distancing during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

In a separate ruling, the judge also declined to move the trial out of Hennepin County, rejecting defense concerns about the ability to seat an impartial jury given the intense media coverage of the case and the possibility of protests that could threaten the safety of participants, including jurors. Cahill wrote that a “fair and safe trial” can be held in Minneapolis and pointed out that “no corner of the state of Minnesota has been shielded from pretrial publicity regarding the death of George Floyd.”

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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office is overseeing the prosecution, said he was “satisfied” by the court’s decisions and believes the case should go forward as planned.

“The murder of George Floyd occurred in Minneapolis, and it is right that the defendants should be tried in Minneapolis,” Ellison said. “It is also true that they acted in concert with each other and the evidence against them is similar, so it is right to try them in one trial.”

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George Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on May 25. Christopher Harris via AP, File

Floyd died May 25 while handcuffed and restrained facedown on a South Minneapolis street as police investigated a 911 call about a counterfeit $20 bill that had been passed at Cup Foods, a local convenience store. During a struggle with police, Floyd was placed on the ground, where Chauvin pressed his knee into the man’s neck for approximately nine minutes as Floyd repeatedly complained of struggling to breathe. Floyd ultimately lost consciousness and lost a pulse while subdued.

The former officers have offered various defenses. Through their attorneys, Kueng and Lane, who were rookies who had been on the job full time for less than a week, have sought to shift blame to Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department who was the senior officer at the scene. Chauvin has blamed Kueng and Lane, suggesting they were in control of the scene and did not do enough to de-escalate the situation with Floyd. Thao, who was handling crowd control, has said his job was to be a “human traffic cone” and that he was not paying close attention to the scene behind him as he kept onlookers at bay.

Floyd’s death sparked a nationwide movement for social and racial justice, with protests emerging in cities from coast to coast along with a renewed and widespread push for police reform. Some of the protests have pitted social justice activists against those backing law enforcement officers.

Chauvin is facing second-degree unintentional murder and manslaughter charges; Kueng, Lane and Thao are charged with aiding and abetting.

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During a pretrial hearing in September, defense attorneys for all four former officers pressed the judge for separate trials, arguing that their defenses, including who was in charge of the scene, would be “antagonistic” and risk their clients’ rights to a fair trial.

“I am not just dealing with prosecutors,” Robert Paule, an attorney for Thao, told the judge. “I am dealing with three other attorneys who are defending their clients.”

But in his ruling, Cahill rejected that argument, saying the former officers had only hinted that they will be pursing antagonistic defenses but have not informed the court formally that that’s what they intend to do. The judge said that under Minnesota law, he could not “assume defenses will be antagonistic unless and until antagonistic defenses have actually been asserted.”

Cahill said the officers have signaled that they will pursue similar defenses. He pointed to recent filings by Chauvin, Lane and Thao in which their attorneys said they would seek to defend their conduct as authorized use of force permitted under state law. The officers also have indicated they will argue Floyd’s death was caused by not their behavior but preexisting health conditions and drug use.

An attorney for Kueng, one of the rookies, told the judge in September his client’s defense would put him at odds with Chauvin’s because he planned to include evidence of the training his client had received from Chauvin, who had been his field training officer. But the judge noted that Kueng had not yet filed a formal notice of his planned defense.

Cahill also rejected claims from the defense that a joint trial would result in “classic finger-pointing” between the former officers. He noted that prosecutors, in their charges, are not seeking to prove that any of the defendants “restrained Floyd with the intent to kill him” but are instead seeking to prove Chauvin’s actions caused Floyd’s death and that the other three officers knew Chauvin was committing a crime.

All the officers, Cahill wrote, “thus have an interest in mounting common defenses, rather than adversarial defenses seeking to blame each other.”

Floyd’s death sparked a nationwide movement for social and racial justice, with protests emerging in cities from coast to coast, along with a renewed and widespread push for police overhauling. Some of the protests have pitted social justice activists against those backing law enforcement officers.

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