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Judge to unseal names of Chauvin trial jurors

Names of the 15 jurors and alternates who heard the case will be made public, as well as the written questionnaires of all 109 potential jurors.

MINNEAPOLIS — Six months after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in George Floyd's May 2020 death, the names of the jurors responsible for his conviction will be made public.

Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill will unseal the names of the 15 jurors and alternates who heard the case Monday.

The written questionnaires of all 109 potential jurors who were formally evaluated for the trial will also be made public.

KARE 11 previously spoke to juror Brandon Mitchell in the days following the trial, who spoke about the impact of race on the jury deliberations.

"I can’t say that it necessarily was about race, because, I mean, the facts have nothing to do with race. The facts are the facts," Mitchell said. "But looking at it as a Black man, from my perspective, I see myself within George Floyd. I see my family, my brothers within George Floyd. And from that aspect, it has a lot (about race.) But in terms of the case, it’s just the facts."

Last week, five jurors and two alternates in the trial talked about their experience on CNN. In an interview with Don Lemon, jurors were asked about the role of race in their deliberations, and whether anybody in the jury was afraid to share their feelings on that subject.

RELATED: 'I wish it didn't have to happen': Alternate juror reflects on Derek Chauvin trial

"Not at all," said juror Sherri Belton Hardeman. "Race wasn't even mentioned in the three and a half weeks that we were in that courtroom, and it was never mentioned during deliberations, I don't believe."

"I think we got here because of systemic racism within the system, right, because of what's been going on," said juror Nicole Deters. "That's how we got to a courtroom in the first place. But when it came down to all three verdicts, it was based on the evidence and the facts 100 percent."

Chauvin, who is white, was convicted in April  in the May 25, 2020 death of Floyd, a Black man. He was sentenced to 22.5 years.

In September, Chauvin filed to appeal his murder conviction, claiming 14 issues, including that Cahill abused his discretion when he denied Chauvin's request to move the trial out of Hennepin County due to pretrial publicity.

In August, prosecutors asked a judge to reject a media request to release the list of juror names, arguing that releasing the names could subject them to harassment and make it harder to seat a jury for the trial of three co-defendants, former officers Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J Alexander Kueng.

Thao, Lane and Kueng are each charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death. They're scheduled to go to on trial in March 2022.

All four men also face federal civil rights charges, alleging the officers violated Floyd's civil rights.

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