Ex Minneapolis police officers won't have jury trial for George Floyd's murder

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: And our top story, jury selection was to have started this morning in the trial of two of the former police officers charged in the killing of George Floyd, but in a last minute twist, it looks like neither officer, Tou Thao, or J. Alexander Kueng, will have a jury trial. Jon Collins was in the courtroom. He joins us right now to explain what happened. Hey, John.

JON COLLINS: Hey Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: So both defendants got right to the start of the trial, and these developments happened. I know there are a lot of details here, so let's start with Tou Thao. What were the charges he was facing?

JON COLLINS: So he was charged with aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter. And you remember Thao was the officer who held bystanders at bay as George Floyd died. And this morning, Thao's attorney announced that he's agreed to waive his right to a jury trial, meaning the judge is going to decide the verdict. It's known as a bench trial. And he also will waive the right to present witnesses and to testify in his own defense.

And this bench trial will be just for the manslaughter charge he faces. And in exchange, the prosecutors are agreeing that they'll drop the murder charge if he's convicted.

CATHY WURZER: So what kind of time could he spend in prison?

JON COLLINS: If convicted, Thao is going to serve somewhere in the area of 48 months. It could be less, it could be more. And typically in Minnesota, people serve 2/3 of the time in prison in one term under what's called supervised release. So he'll serve any time, he'll serve 2/3 of that 48 months, or whatever the judge sentences him to, but he'll also serve this concurrently.

So that means at the same time as the federal sentence, which he was convicted of, defiling George Floyd's civil rights in federal court. So if he gets the middle sentence in state court, it's going to probably be slightly shorter than his sentence in federal court.

CATHY WURZER: Mm-hmm. J. Alexander Kueng, the other officer, was he facing the same charges?

JON COLLINS: Yeah, he was. And what happened today is that he agreed to plead guilty to the aiding and abetting manslaughter, and the expected sentence for that would be 42 months, minus the time he's already served. In exchange, the state agrees to drop the murder charge and let him serve the time concurrently in federal prison.

CATHY WURZER: How are we to interpret these developments? I mean, as I say, we were set to, well, you were set, the reporters were set, everybody was set for a jury trial, and then this happened.

JON COLLINS: You know, I mean, at this point, this would have been the third trial involving the same evidence and the same witnesses. It's a huge burden to ask these witnesses to come in and relive these moments. And it's a huge expense for both the state, and I assume for the defense attorneys here to get into a long trial.

So in a certain way, you're going to have the state get what they want, which is you know guilty verdicts, potentially, with Thao still being decided by the judge, and then the defendants, even if Thao in this case is found guilty by the judge won't actually serve more time than their federal sentences already require.

So in a certain way, this is the parties trying to move forward and move on from this whole process. We'll have to remember, I mean, this is May, 2020, it's been happening, and specifically, George Floyd's family has previously expressed frustration and exhaustion with the really long process in both federal and state courts. So it seems like they would really welcome wrapping the process up.

CATHY WURZER: And we've not heard from the Floyd family at this point?

JON COLLINS: No, they were not in court today according to the pool reporters in there. But previously they have said that it hurts to relive the moments. At the previous sentencing of Thomas Lane, their former co-defendant, they said that reliving all the moments and watching him die over and over is traumatizing, which is totally understandable.

And attorney general Keith Ellison did release a statement after the hearing this morning just saying that he wants to express gratitude to Floyd's family for persevering here, and hoping that these resolutions might help bring both them and the broader community some sort of comfort.

CATHY WURZER: Before you go, Jon, have you had a chance to-- I know you've been really busy. Have you had a chance to talk to any legal experts about do you think that the two defendants have been discussing this with their attorneys now for a little while? Because it just seems like it happened so fast, but there must have been some kind of discussion going on behind the scenes.

JON COLLINS: Yeah. I spoke a couple minutes ago to Angi Porter, who's an attorney who has been following these cases very closely. And we were talking about how typically in these cases, the negotiations can go to the last minute. And I think that's kind of what we saw today. Both of these defendants had previously rejected plea deals from the state. And so they had the opportunity to settle earlier on. But in this case, it's trying to go up to the wire to try to get as much as they think they can get in order to resolve the case.

But certainly, their co-defendant, Thomas Lane, was involved in this process a long time ago and just made the decision to wrap it up earlier. So it sounds like it was the product of a lot of negotiations from both sides to try to get to some sort of resolution.

CATHY WURZER: Mm-hmm. Jon Collins, thank you so much for the update.

JON COLLINS: Thanks for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Jon Collins, of course, will have a story about this later this afternoon. And all things considered, he's also, of course, filing for nprnews.org.