NATION
TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2021
THE OBSERVER — 7A
Jury selection in 3rd week for ex-cop’s trial in Floyd death
By STEVE KARNOWSKI
and AMY FORLITI
MORE COVERAGE
Find AP’s full coverage of the
death of George Floyd at apnews.
com/hub/death-of-george-fl oyd.
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS — Jury
selection entered its third
week Monday, March 22,
for a former Minneapolis
police offi cer charged in
George Floyd’s death, with
at least two more jurors
needed ahead of opening
statements next week.
Thirteen jurors have
been seated for Derek
Chauvin’s trial on murder
and manslaughter charges.
The judge has said two
more will be seated ahead
of opening statements
expected March 29. Only 12
will deliberate. The others
will be alternates, needed
only if some jurors are
unable to to serve for any
reason.
Floyd, who was Black,
was declared dead May
25 after Chauvin, who is
white, pressed his knee on
his neck for about nine min-
utes while he was hand-
cuff ed and pleading that he
couldn’t breathe. Floyd’s
Court TV via Associates Press, Pool
Defense attorney Eric Nelson, left, and defendant former Minneapolis police offi cer Derek Chauvin listen as Hen-
nepin County Judge Peter Cahill discusses pretrial motions, prior to continuing jury selection, Friday, March 19,
2021, at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Chauvin is charged in the May 25, 2020,
death of George Floyd.
death, captured on a widely
seen bystander video, set off
weeks of sometimes violent
protests across the country
and led to a national reck-
oning on racial justice.
On Friday, Hennepin
County Judge Peter Cahill
declined a defense request
to delay or move Chauvin’s
trial over concerns that a
$27 million settlement for
Floyd’s family had tainted
the jury pool.
Cahill, who called the
timing “unfortunate,” said
he believed a delay would
do nothing to stem the
problem of pretrial pub-
licity, and that there’s
no place in Minnesota
untouched by that publicity.
In another signifi cant
ruling Friday, the judge
handed the defense a vic-
tory by ruling that the jury
can hear evidence from
Floyd’s 2019 arrest, but only
information possibly per-
taining to the cause of his
death in 2020. He acknowl-
edged several similarities
between the two encoun-
ters, including that Floyd
swallowed drugs after
police confronted him.
The judge previously
said the earlier arrest could
not be admitted, but he
reconsidered after drugs
were found in January in a
second search of the police
SUV that the four offi -
cers attempted to put Floyd
in last year. The defense
argues that Floyd’s drug use
contributed to his death.
Cahill said he’d allow
medical evidence of Floyd’s
physical reactions, such
as his dangerously high
blood pressure when he was
examined by a paramedic in
2019, and a short clip of an
offi cer’s body camera video.
He said Floyd’s “emotional
behavior,” such as calling
out to his mother, won’t be
admitted.
The county medical
examiner classifi ed Floyd’s
death as a homicide in an
initial summary that said
he “had a cardiopulmo-
nary arrest while being
restrained by police.” Floyd
was declared dead at a hos-
pital 2.5 miles from where
he was restrained.
The full report said
he died of “cardiopulmo-
nary arrest, complicating
law enforcement subdual,
restraint, and neck com-
pression.” A summary
report listed fentanyl intox-
ication and recent metham-
phetamine use under “other
signifi cant conditions” but
not under “cause of death.”
The 13 jurors seated
through Friday are split
by race: Seven are white,
four are Black and two
are multiracial, according
to the court.
Bill to aid U.S. publishers vs. Google, Facebook rises again
Microsoft president
supports the bill;
Google and
Facebook stay silent
By TALI ARBEL
AP Technology Writer
WASHINGTON — A
congressional eff ort to bol-
ster U.S. news organizations
in negotiations with Big
Tech has supporters hoping
that third time’s the charm.
The bill, the Journalism
Competition and Preserva-
tion Act, was introduced
in March for the third time
since 2018. Its odds of pas-
sage may have improved in
a Democrat-run Congress
that’s working on over-
hauling antitrust laws.
Australia and other
countries have started
pushing mechanisms to
support news publishers
against Facebook and
Google, which dominate
online advertising. Pub-
lishers argue that Big Tech
squeezes news organiza-
tions out of digital ad rev-
enue and exerts undue con-
trol over who can see their
journalism.
The bill would off er a
four-year antitrust exemp-
tion to publishers so they
can negotiate as a group
with “dominant online
platforms.” Facebook and
Google get the majority of
online ad dollars in the U.S.
The measure aims to give
publishers better leverage
with the tech companies,
while only allowing coordi-
nation that benefi ts the news
industry as a whole, amid
a long-running decline in
local news.
Rep. David Cicilline, a
Rhode Island Democrat and
one of the bill’s sponsors,
said in prepared remarks for
a hearing earlier this month
that the legislation would
provide news publishers
an “even playing fi eld” to
negotiate deals with major
tech platforms. The news
industry is struggling with
falling revenues, shrinking
newsrooms and failing pub-
lications — which Cicilline
and others call a threat to
democracy — while Google
and Facebook rack up bil-
lions in profi ts.
“This bill is a life support
measure, not the answer
for ensuring the long-term
health of the news industry,”
the congressman said.
While the bill has
Miami Beach curfew aims
to end spring break partying
Police say they
arrested more than
1,000 people, seized
about 80 guns
By KELLI KENNEDY
Associated Press
FORT LAUDERDALE,
Fla. — A party-ending
curfew imposed after fi ghts,
gunfi re, property destruc-
tion and stampedes broke
out among huge crowds
of people in Miami Beach
could extend through the
end of spring break.
Miami Beach commis-
sioners voted unanimously
Sunday, March 21, to
empower the city manager
to extend the curfew in the
South Beach entertainment
district until at least April
12, shutting down a spring
break hot spot in one of the
few states fully open during
the pandemic.
SWAT teams and law
enforcement offi cers from
Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald via AP
Crowds gather in the street while a speaker blasts music an hour past cur-
few in Miami Beach, Florida, on Sunday, March 21, 2021. An 8 p.m. curfew
has been extended in Miami Beach after law enforcement worked to con-
tain unruly crowds of spring break tourists.
at least four other agencies
sought to contain the rau-
cous crowds, but confron-
tations continued for days
before Miami Beach offi -
cials enacted the curfew,
which forces Ocean Drive
restaurants to stop outdoor
seating entirely.
City Manager Raul
Aguila said many people
from other states were
coming in “to engage in
lawlessness and an ‘any-
thing goes’ party atti-
tude.” He said most weren’t
patronizing the businesses
that badly need tourism dol-
lars, and instead merely
congregating by the thou-
sands in the street.
Miami Beach Police
said more than 1,000
people have been arrested
this spring break season,
with about 80 guns seized.
Supreme Court could reimpose Boston
Marathon bomber’s death sentence
Associated Press
WASHINGTON —
The Supreme Court said
Monday, March 22, it
will consider reinstating
the death sentence for
Boston Marathon bomber
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, pre-
senting President Joe
Biden with an early test of
his opposition to capital
punishment.
The justices agreed to
hear an appeal fi led by the
Trump administration,
which carried out execu-
tions of 13 federal inmates
in its fi nal six months in
offi ce.
The case won’t be
heard until the fall, and
it’s unclear how the
new administration will
approach the case. The ini-
tial prosecution and deci-
sion to seek a death sen-
tence was made by the
Obama administration, in
which Biden served as vice
president. But Biden has
pledged to seek an end to
the federal death penalty.
In July, the federal
appeals court in Boston
threw out Tsarnaev’s sen-
tence because it said the
judge at his trial did not do
enough to ensure the jury
would not be biased against
him.
The Justice Depart-
ment had moved quickly to
appeal, asking the justices
to hear and decide the case
by the end of the court’s
current term, in summer.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers
acknowledged at the begin-
ning of his trial that he and
his older brother, Tamerlan
Tsarnaev, set off the two
bombs at the marathon
fi nish line in 2013. But they
argued that Dzhokar Tsar-
naev is less culpable than
his brother, who they said
was the mastermind behind
the attack.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26,
died following a gunfi ght
with police and being run
over by his brother as he
fl ed.
Police captured a bloodied
and wounded Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev hours later.
Republican cosponsors in
both the House and Senate,
some Republicans in the
same hearing expressed
reservations. Rep. Jim
Jordan, an Ohio Repub-
lican, said he worried about
giving more power to large
media companies that
would suppress conserva-
tives’ opinions. Republi-
cans often assert without
evidence that tech compa-
nies censor conservatives
and right-wing media.
The News Guild, a
union that represents jour-
nalists, says the bill would
work best with additional
provisions to support jobs.
It has long objected to
media consolidation and
criticizes many publishers
for impeding unionization
and slashing newsroom
jobs, particularly at chains
owned by hedge funds and
private equity fi rms.
News Guild president Jon
Schleuss would like the leg-
islation to require publishers
to spend 60% of the rev-
enue won from bargaining
to hire more journalists and
also support small papers
and fund start-ups in “news
deserts,” areas where papers
have folded, worried that
instead it might be spent on
things like dividends, stock
buybacks and squeezing out
higher profi t margins.
Microsoft, whose pres-
ident testifi ed during the
hearing, supports the
bill. Google and Face-
book on Friday, March 19,
declined to comment on the
legislation.
In February, however,
Facebook took the extraor-
dinary step of banning Aus-
tralian news from its plat-
form to protest a law that
would have required it to
negotiate with publishers to
compensate them for its use
of news content. Facebook
lifted the ban once the gov-
ernment agreed to modify
the law. Microsoft, mean-
while, has teamed up with
European publishers to sup-
port measures similar to the
Australian law in Europe.
Over the past few years,
Facebook, Google, Amazon
and Apple have all come
under increasing scrutiny
from Congress and regu-
lators. The Justice Depart-
ment, Federal Trade Com-
mission and state attorneys
general are suing the
internet giants for a variety
of antitrust violations, some
of which are related to the
woes of publishers.