Before the jury was brought in this morning, the man who was with George Floyd on the night he died, appeared in court from jail via video.
Morries Hall, through his attorney, Adrienne Cousins, announced his plan to invoke his Fifth Amendment constitutional right against self-incrimination. Cousins this morning told Judge Pete Cahill “your honor at this point in time, Mr. Hall has no immunity, he has been provided no immunity, no protection for his testimony, whatsoever.” Cousins requested that the 5th Amendment privilege would apply to “any activities that took place on May 25th, 2020, both before and after police arrived.” And she added, “Mr. Hall’s testimony in these matters would specifically put him in the position of being in very close proximity to Mr. Floyd. There’s an allegation here that Mr. Floyd ingested a controlled substance as police were removing him from the car, a car, by the way, that has been searched twice and to my understanding, drugs have been found in that car twice, this leaves Mr. Hall potentially incriminating himself into a future prosecution for 3rd-degree murder.” Hall is currently in jail on charges unrelated to Floyd’s death. Last week, Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross, testified that Hall provided Floyd with illicit drugs earlier in the month before Floyd died. Derek Chauvin’s defense contends that opioids and underlying health issues were key factors in Floyd’s death–not Chauvin’s actions. Judge Pete Cahill says he’ll make a ruling later this week on whether Hall would be compelled to testify about Floyd’s behavior in the moments leading to his encounter with police on May 25th, 2020.