Most of the jury will be familiar with a bystander's May 2020 cellphone video of Chauvin pinning Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes, as Floyd — who was suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill — begged him to stop, said he couldn't breathe, and lost consciousness. The video of a Black man gasping for breath under the knee of a white police officer was viewed by millions and rekindled a nationwide racial justice movement last summer.
Now, jurors may see a less famous video of another arrest in 2019, one that resulted in Floyd being hospitalized for high blood pressure.
Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill ruled Friday morning that evidence of the May 6, 2019, arrest in a narcotics investigation could be presented to jurors at trial, after evidence surfaced suggesting Floyd may have eaten drugs to hide them from police shortly before his death a year later.
But Judge Cahill limited what information from the arrest could be shared with jurors. He said it could only be used by the defense for the limited purpose of arguing Floyd's cause of death was drug-related and not caused by Chauvin choking him.
"Any other purpose for which this is offered is not relevant and is unduly prejudicial and outweighs the probative value," Judge Cahill said. "But as to the point of cause of death and medical condition, May 6 is relevant."
The defense has argued Floyd's 2019 arrest was similar to the one in 2020 that ended in his death. In both cases, officers quickly pointed their guns at him when they approached him in a car. Floyd said some of the same things while being handcuffed during both arrests, including calling out for his mother.
In 2019, he was suspected of eating drugs in a frantic effort to hide them from police, according to body camera footage. He was put in a squad car and transported to the police station, where a paramedic asked what he ingested and took his blood pressure, finding it was so high that he was at risk for a heart attack or stroke, according to court filings. He was hospitalized.
The defense has alleged that in footage of the 2020 arrest that ended in his death, a freeze frame revealed something white inside Floyd's mouth. Police tried and failed to get him into a squad car, and a pill with Floyd's saliva on it was recently found in the back seat. A toxicology report found signs of methamphetamine and fentanyl in Floyd's blood shortly after his death.
During a hearing on Tuesday, defense attorney Eric Nelson of Halberg Criminal Defense said the 2019 evidence implied a pattern of behavior: "the ingestion of substances during police interaction knowing that would potentially lead to your hospitalization rather than incarceration."
Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank said on Tuesday that the evidence amounted to an effort "to smear Mr. Floyd's character, to show that he struggled with an opiate addiction like so many Americans do."
Announcing his decision from the bench on Friday, Judge Cahill said he would allow officers' bodycamera footage of the beginning of Floyd's 2019 arrest, photos showing pills in the seat crack of the car, and testimony from the paramedic who spoke to him that day about why she recommended hospitalization.
"There is a modus operandi to conceal drugs in part by ingesting them, but also doing so under very stressful circumstances, that is, being pulled out of a car at gunpoint and handcuffed," the judge said.
But similarities between Floyd's emotional reactions in 2019 and 2020 could not be admitted as evidence, the judge said.
"His statements, while they are very similar to what was said on May 25, don't really establish anything other than perhaps his mental state," he said. "Mr. Floyd's internal motivations are immaterial. Whether he's suffering a panic attack or malingering is immaterial."
Judge Cahill used that same reasoning to deny prosecutors' efforts to include testimony from a forensic psychologist who planned to speak about how Floyd's reaction to his 2020 arrest suggested signs of trauma and a panic response.
The judge said Floyd's state of mind was irrelevant to determining whether or not he was murdered. But he added that if the defense "opened the door" by eliciting testimony about Floyd's intent, he might allow the doctor to testify.
The judge made the rulings before the continuation of jury selection Friday. As of Friday afternoon, 13 of 14 jurors had been seated.
The trial is set to begin March 29. Nelson sought to delay or change the venue of the trial after raising concerns that potential jurors could be biased by news of the city of Minneapolis' $27 million civil settlement with the Floyd family. The judge denied Nelson's motions on Friday, and the trial is set to begin as scheduled.
--Editing by Brian Baresch.
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