(AllHipHop News) When Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter Cahill issued a gag order around the George Floyd police-involved killing case in Minneapolis on July 9, media outlets lost their minds.
To Black America, the case to determine the fate of George Floyd’s murderers will be the trial of the century.
The order would have prohibited parties connected to either the defense or the prosecution from speaking publicly or to the press about the case.
Reporters would also be restricted from having access to the case records presented during the trial.
However yesterday, a judge ordered the gag order to be lifted,. Clearing the way for .
Judge Cahill ruled that the 4 cops accused of being involved in George Floyd’s murder – Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Kiernan Lane and Tou Thao – have a right to respond to “pretrial statements to meet negative publicity.”
Judge Cahill was worried that too much publicity before the trial would spoil the jury pool, causing the possibility of bias against one side.
But finding a jury will be difficult anyway.
Since the murder of George Floyd two months ago, the world has erupted in civil unrest.
Week-long protests and demonstrations have reignited the Black Lives Matter movement with unprecedented zeal and support from people never concerned about racial injustice and police brutality.
His death, by kneeling from one former officer Derek Chauvin, has also connected generations and sparked a culture shift in national politics, corporate American, and local police departments.
George Floyd and the officers on trial have been polarized like no other figures in modern American History and everyone seems to have a thought on the circumstances surrounding his death.
Some outlets like CNN, CBS, and the New York Times believe that prohibiting them from publishing what they have learned is a violation of their constitutional right to free speech.
The ex-cops also siding with the media and believe that once the public see the evidence from their lawyers, a different narrative about the events leading up to George Floyd’s death will emerge.