With Closing Arguments Finished, Chauvin’s Fate Is Now in Jury’s Hands

The jury will be sequestered in a hotel during their deliberations over Derek Chauvin, who is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

MINNEAPOLIS — The two sides in one of the nation’s most closely watched police brutality trials returned one last time to the graphic video of George Floyd’s final moments on Monday, with the prosecution asking jurors to “believe your eyes” and the defense warning them not to be “misled” by a freeze-frame view. After 14 days of testimony from policing experts, medical doctors, members of the Minneapolis Police Department and bystanders, lawyers made their closing arguments, urging the jurors to use common sense as the case was placed in their hands. The prosecution focused on the nine minutes and 29 seconds that Derek Chauvin, the white police officer charged with murder, kept his knee on the neck of Mr. Floyd, a handcuffed Black man, on a Minneapolis street last Memorial Day.