Watch Live: Defense Presents Closing Arguments In Derek Chauvin Trial

The defense lawyer of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is making closing arguments in the murder trial of George Floyd.

Chauvin is facing counts of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

Defense lawyer Eric Nelson began his closing arguments by discussing the presumption of innocence and the state’s burden of proving Chauvin’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

“Compare the evidence against itself. Test it, challenge it,” Nelson said. Start from the point of the presumption of innocence and see how far the state can get, he suggested to the jury — and he argued that the state has failed to meet its burden.

If the state is “missing any one single element, it is a not guilty verdict,” Nelson said.

Prosecutors have stated that Chauvin’s use of force was not reasonable and contrary to his police training. Nelson’s arguments focused how “a reasonable police officer” would have handled the incident, to make the case that Chauvin acted reasonably.

He pointed to the dispatch report, with its changes in codes and information over the course of a few minutes. It shows “how quickly a situation can change from second to second, minute to minute,” Nelson said. “”The situation is dynamic and it’s fluid.”

A reasonable officer would conclude that the amount of force being used by the two other officers was insufficient to overpower Floyd’s resistance to get into the car, Nelson said, and decide that additional force was necessary.

Nelson showed different officers’ bodycam footage to illustrate the officers’ views of the incident. Chauvin and two other officers struggled with Floyd for a little over a minute.

“A reasonable officer would understand this situation. That Mr. Floyd was able to overcome the efforts of three police officers while handcuffed, with his legs and his body strength,” Nelson said.

The prosecution has already laid out its closing arguments to the jury, saying that Chauvin directly caused the death of Floyd last Memorial Day after kneeling on his neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds.

Floyd was not in perfect health, and he was under stress, prosecutor Steve Schleicher told the court earlier on Monday.

“But none of this caused George Floyd’s heart to fail. It did not,” the prosecutor said. “His heart failed because the defendant’s use of force, the 9:29, that deprived Mr. Floyd of the oxygen that he needed, that humans need, to live.”

NPR’s Merrit Kennedy contributed to this report.