In the Chauvin trial, was the 20 dollar bill ever proven to be fake?

[70sEraVet]

And if it WAS a fake, is there any indication that George Floyd KNEW it was a fake? It just seems that establishing the justification for the initial call to the police would be an important fact for the jury to consider, whether for the prosecution to show George Floyd as a blameless victim or for the defense to further paint Floyd as an habitual criminal.
I tried to research how the 20 dollar bill issue was presented at the trial, and this was the best I could come up with;
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/us/george-floyd-bill-counterfeit.html

[drray23]

1. its completely irrelevant

Floyd was not on trial. Chauvin was. Whether or not that bill was counterfeit has no bearing on the actions Chauvin took. It would have been malpractice for the prosecution to focus on that. Their job is not to show that George Floyd was guilty or innocent of anything, it is to show that Chauvin was guilty of murder.

[StarfishSaver]

2. This

[TomSlick]

3. You are, of course, correct.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. This is the only answer.

[dchill]

10. There it is.

[left-of-center2012]

15. Okay but that doesn't answer the questions

Was it really a fake $20 bill?

[LeftInTX]

18. I don't think we will ever know..I doubt it is even part of discovery or anything....

[stopdiggin]

22. fake enough that a 19 year old clerk

(and then several other employees on consultation) almost immediately said "bogus."
It wasn't highlighted in the trial (IMO) because there was little real doubt, and 2) because it was truly irrelevant.

- NYTimes - - In opening statements in the trial of Derek Chauvin, a prosecutor showed a photograph of two $20 bills that had the same serial number, suggesting that they were counterfeit. -

?quality=90&auto=webp

[Mad_Machine76]

17. Exactly

Also, police are not judge, juries, nor executioners. They are not just allowed to kill people unless they’re intervening to legitimately protect themselves or others, although they seem to have a pretty good track record of bringing in armed white killers alive. Unless it would be a capital crime otherwise, police cannot nor should not be able to use any other justification for murder.

[stopdiggin]

20. yeah -- blind alley -- completely meaningless -(nt)-

[brush]

21. IMO it's pretty obvious George Floyd didn't know it was fake.

Anyone passing fake bills is not going to hang around outside the store where he just passed it, which is where he was arrested and killed by the police.

[ecstatic]

25. Exactly! Nt

[Solly Mack]

24. Precisely. Doesn't matter.

The whole defense position that Mr. Floyd was a big scary black man and bad guy engaging in criminal activity is nothing but racist garbage attempting to justify Mr. Floyd's death at the knee of Chauvin.

[Mike Nelson]

4. Interesting question...

... I assume it was a fake and I assume Floyd did not know. Probably, the prosecution would have made a big deal about it not being a forged bill... but I don't recall any definitive statement...

[BGBD]

7. It has no bearing

[Ocelot II]

5. I think it was found to be counterfeit when the store clerk ran it through a scanner,

but that's completely irrelevant to the question of Chauvin's guilt, as was whether Floyd knew it was fake. The prosecution didn't have to show that Floyd was a blameless victim; even if he'd intentionally passed a fake bill, or even if he'd printed it himself, it would have had no relevance at all to the question of whether Chauvin used excessive force, and thereby killed him, when arresting him. Floyd could have been Jeffrey Dahmer or the Zodiac Killer and it wouldn't have made Chauvin's actions excusable.

[70sEraVet]

8. I'll buy that it is an irrelevant question TO THE PROSECUTION

but FOR THE DEFENSE, who was relying on Floyd's criminal and drug history to influence the jury, the status of that 20 dollar bill (and Floyd's knowledge of that status) would seem to be important.

[Ocelot II]

9. Relevance is relevance, regardless who's looking at it.

Under the rules of evidence, '"Relevant evidence" means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.' If the defense had wanted to bring it up, the prosecution would have objected on the grounds of relevance, and the objection would have been sustained because whether the bill was counterfeit wouldn't have made any fact of consequence to the determination of Chauvin's guilt - the only issue being tried - more or less probable.

[progree]

11. The store clerk said he didn't think Floyd knew it was counterfeit

https://kstp.com/news/morries-hall-passenger-seen-with-george-floyd-invokes-fifth-amendment-to-refuse-testimony-in-derek-chauvin-trial/6060165/

Nineteen-year-old Christopher Martin, who was the cashier at Cup Foods that sold Floyd cigarettes and noticed the money was counterfeit, stated Tuesday in court that Hall ((who was with Floyd -Progree)) was acting "more suspicious" than Floyd. Martin added that he didn't think Floyd knew the money he paid with was counterfeit.

[Dreampuff]

12. I agree that it is irrelevant

But George Floyd's past and actions were brought up throughout the trial and since Chauvin did not take the stand, no one got to know about his evil doings.

We followed this trial closely and the $20 bill was more than likely counterfeit. The clerk at the store regretted not just putting in a $20 bill of his own after he saw what it led to. Some of the employees at the store claimed that if they took counterfeit bills, they had to pay it back out of their own pocket, but the company denied it.

I believe it was two store employees who went to ask him for a different bill since that one was fake. I don't believe for a second that he knew it was a fake and it wasn't a scam he was running since no other counterfeit bills were being passed around by him in that area.

The defense blamed the victim for his own death and blamed everyone and everything else except the actual killer.

[Retrograde]

13. Doesn't matter

Doesn't matter whether the bill was counterfeit or not. Doesn't matter whether Mr. Floyd was a living saint or whether he was taking time off from kicking puppies and pushing old people into traffic. What matters is whether Chauvin used excessive force in restraining him, or whether he ignored department guidelines, and thereby killed Mr. Floyd.

[fescuerescue]

14. If it's fake the prosecution would ask to suppress it

If it's real the defense would want to suppress it.

Either way it get's suppressed in the unlikely event one of the sides tried to pull it in.

[left-of-center2012]

16. I wondered that myself

People will say it doesn't matter and who cares etc etc etc.

Some of us are curious and we would like to know.

[LakeArenal]

19. Me , too.

No one should Los their life over $20.

But it is something I wondered about.

[Deminpenn]

23. The clerk testified that when he held the bill up

to the light, it looked "too blue", iirc. He went back and forth with himself before deciding to tell the store manager. Then, when he and another employee went out to ask Floyd to come back in the store to discuss it, the other male passenger ripped the bill up and threw it on the ground. Again, iirc, whether the bill was counterfiet or not was never established by either the prosecution or the defense.

In my experience, cashiers have pens that they use to mark a bill that will show if it's counterfeit. It was never explained why this store either didn't have or use them.

[Sunsky]

26. The prosecution mentioned this in their closing

That, we still don't know whether Floyd knew the bill was counterfeit, and while Chauvin got his day in court to prove his innocence, George Floyd did not.
Floyd isn't on trial so proving his innocence or guilt is irrelevant. The drugs came in because the defense is claiming it contributed to Floyd's death and not Chauvin's knee on his neck.