A Minnesota judge has declined requests from the former Minneapolis police officers charged in the death of George Floyd, ruling that all four will be tried in a single proceeding which will be televised despite state prosecutors not consenting to any audio or visual coverage in the courtroom, MSN News reports.
The Wednesday night order, from Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill, also denied requests from defendants Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Kiernan Lane to have the trial moved out of Minneapolis. The defendants had previously argued that remaining in the city would violate their Sixth Amendment right to a fair proceeding due to the amount of pre-trial exposure.
In allowing the proceedings to be televised, Cahill reasoned that the defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial ran concurrent with “the general public’s First Amendment right of access to public trials.”
“The interests promoted by this First Amendment right of public assess are similar to those promoted by the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial,” the judge said.
