The federal trial for three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights as their fellow officer, Derek Chauvin pinned the Black man’s neck to the street is expected to begin Monday with opening statements, after a jury of 18 people was swiftly picked last week.

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About 98 per cent of killings by police from 2013-2020 have not resulted in police officers being charged with a crime, non-profit Mapping Police Violence says.

The watchdog that tracks the police fatalities in the US says that there is still no accountability and that 98.3 per cent of fatalities by police during the seven-year period have not resulted in the police officers being charged with a crime.

It says that Black people are still two and a half to three times as likely as white people to be killed by a police officer.

In 2021, police killed 1134 people across the country.

Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a former prosecutor was quoted as saying in a New York Times report that “criminal trials are not designed to be instruments of change.”

He added that “criminal trials are about bringing individual wrongdoers to justice. So while there have been high-profile prosecutions of police officers for killing Black people, that doesn’t in and of itself lead to the kind of systemic reform that might reduce police violence.”

Opening arguments in the federal trial of three former Minneapolis officers in the George Floyd killing in May 2020, are expected to begin on Monday.

As federal trial into the three former Minneapolis police officers is all set to begin on Monday, there are questions over whether Derek Chauvin — who has pleaded guilty in the George Floyd murder case — will be called in to testify.

F Clayton Tyler — a Minneapolis defence attorney who is not connected to the case — told Associated Press: “My guess is that neither party will call him.” He, however, said that if the prosecutors’ arguments are going poorly, they might call Mr Chauvin to testify.

He said “you can imagine how the other attorneys are going to be able to jump on him. It could get ugly if he gets on the stand.”

Mr Tyler pointed out that defence attorneys might call him if they know he is going to testify in their favour. “They’re going to point the finger at him anyway, without him being there” since he was the senior officer at the time of encounter.

According to Mapping Police Violence — a nonprofit that tracks police fatalities across the country — in 2021, there were only fifteen days when the police didn’t kill anybody.

The shocking data reveals that last year, the police killed 1134 people, despite the uproar across the country after George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in May 2020.

Their analysis suggested that the majority of these killings by police in 2021 could have been prevented.

And among those killed, Mapping Police Violence says that “Black people were 28 per cent of those killed by police in 2021 despite being only 13 per cent of the population.”

The US District Judge Paul Magnuson rejected the media coalition’s request to ease restrictions on the number of reporters allowed inside the courtroom.

In a letter to Leita Walker, attorney for the media coalition, last week Mr Magnuson wrote: “The current spread of the omicron variant has created an unprecedented situation for our court system. We must keep the jurors we have invited to the courthouse as safe as possible, and science dictates that restricting the number of the people in the courtroom is the best way to do that.”

He also rejected the media coalition’s request for same-day access to trial exhibits. “I appreciate your concerns but I do not share them. I believe that the media and the public will have as much access to these proceedings as is possible in this time of high Covid transmission.”

He also said that he will decide on releasing the exhibits at the end of the case.

As the federal trial for three former Minneapolis police officers begins on Monday, the US District Court Judge Paul Magnuson has said that he expects the trial to last four weeks.

The courthouse in downtown St Paul seated 18 jurors for the federal trial — 12 will deliberate and six are alternates, the Associated Press reported.

There are eight men and 10 women. The opening arguments in the three former Minneapolis officers — who are charged with violating George Floyd’s constitutional right by not providing medical aid during the May 2020 encounter in which Floyd died — are expected to start on 24 January.

As cameras are not allowed in the federal courtroom — the trial is being held at the Warren E Burger Federal Building and US Courthouse in downtown St Paul — the following people are expected to be in the courtroom:

US District Court Judge Paul Magnuson; former officers J Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao; defence attorneys Robert Paule, Earl Gray and Thomas Plunkett; attorneys from the US Attorney’s Office; jurors; witnesses; court reporter; four pool media reporters and a sketch artist.

George Floyd, 46, died in May 2020 after Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck even as Floyd kept saying that he couldn’t breathe.

Two other former Minneapolis police officers — J Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane — helped restrain Floyd while another, now-former officer with the Minneapolis police Tou Thao held back bystanders.

The prosecutors with the US Attorney’s Office are expected to take a total of 30 to 40 minutes to present their opening statements today.

Defence attorney, Mike Bryant — who is not involved in the trial — told Fox9 News that “my expectation is there will be a combination of argument and videos to start showing the video to show what each of these officers did wrong in depriving George Floyd of his rights.”

He added that “they all have different levels of involvement. You’ve got different levels of experience. You have different levels of what they did. So there is a possibility you may see one or two of them argue in a different manner than the third.”

One of the three former Minneapolis police officers, Thomas Lane faces charges of violating George Floyd’s constitutional rights by failing to provide medical aid to him in May 200 when their fellow officer Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck.

Mr Lane joined the Minneapolis Police Department in early 2019.

Three generations of men on his mother’s side of the family also served in the department, including his great-great-grandfather Michael Mealey, who was chief from 1911 to 1912, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

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