Lawyer requests delay of trial for ex-cop who killed Floyd

The lawyer defending Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd last year, requested Monday that his client's trial be postponed, citing potential judicial bias in the wake of a multimillion-dollar settlement reached between the city of Minneapolis and the Floyd family, reported Xinhua.

"I am gravely concerned with the news that broke on Friday related to the civil settlement," Eric Nelson, Chauvin's lawyer, told Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill in a hearing. "The fact that this came in the exact middle of jury selection is perplexing to me, your honor."

Nelson claimed that the 27-million-dollar settlement between the Minneapolis City Council and the Floyd family could negatively affect the impartiality of the jurors in the Chauvin trial, which has been scheduled for March 29. The jury selection, which has already delayed the trial, began last week and would continue as planned, according to Cahill.

As regards Nelson's point, Cahill said the concern was "legitimate," but that he didn't see "any evil intent" in the city council's decision to unanimously vote for the settlement, which was hailed by the Floyds' lawyer as "the largest pre-trial settlement in a wrongful death case ever would be for the life of a Black man."

Altogether, Chauvin, a white former police officer who kneeled on Floyd's neck for an extended period of time on May 25 last year before the Black man was pronounced dead on the same day, faced second-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter and third-degree murder charges.

Video footage of Floyd's brutal killing by Chauvin and his three colleagues triggered nationwide reckoning over race, and the call for racial justice resonated all around the world.