MINNEAPOLIS — Monday’s ruling by the judge in the case of the two Minneapolis police officers who were charged with George Floyd’s murder ordered that the trial be rescheduled for January so that fair trials can take place.
J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao were due to stand trial on Monday for second-degree murder charges and second-degree manslaughter. They are accused of aiding and abiding second-degree murder in Floyd’s May 2020 death. On Monday, Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill ordered that the trial be rescheduled for Jan.
Cahill declined to move for a change in venue because of the pre-trial publicity. He said that media reports and events in related cases had created “a reasonable probability of an unfair trial”, if the trial were to start next week.
Cahill mentioned the May 18 guilty plea of Thao and Keung’s former Officer Thomas Lane. In February, he also mentioned the federal civil rights convictions of Thao and Kueng in separate federal court trials.
Judge said that these two events and the public attention they received could make it difficult for jurors not to assume that Thao or Kueng are innocent of any state charges. He ordered a seven-month delay in order to lessen the negative effects of this publicity.
