Top prosecutor in trial of officer who killed George Floyd writes book recounting case

By STEVE KARNOWSKI
Associated Press

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison reveals in a new book how worried prosecutors were that a judge would move the trial of former officer Derek Chauvin out of the city where he killed George Floyd. So they conducted a mock trial in a deep red rural county to test their strategy. It worked. Ellison was pleasantly surprised that even the mock jurors in Stearns County of central Minnesota would have convicted Chauvin and three co-defendants of manslaughter. And almost all would have convicted them on the top charge of second-degree murder. Two mock juries in Hennepin County, where the case ultimately stayed, came back guilty on all counts.