I saw a few seconds of it, don't even remember when or how. The defense lawyer was saying "Chauvin did what he was TRAINED to do." It seems like the inevitable line for the defense to take, but I got a sinking feeling thinking it might "work" and everybody gets let off the hook.
I can't. I'll be following the verdict and what follows with interest, though.
Co-signing 2. I literally don't have the stomach for it. But what comes after has the potential to be defining moment for the next few years.
Another one not watching the trial. Chauvin was filmed slowly strangling Floyd to death while a crowd begged him to stop. That might not be enough for a murder conviction depending on the jury, and the possibility that it isn't horrifies me.
Me too, despite posting about it.
The Star Tribune explains the charges against Chauvin. The toughest charge is "second-degree unintentional murder." For that charge:
[T]he state's prosecutors will have to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin caused Floyd's death while assaulting him.
State sentencing guidelines suggest 10.75 to 15 years for that one.
On the low end, we have second-degree manslaughter:
[P]rosecutors will need to show beyond a reasonable doubt that he was "culpably negligent" and took an "unreasonable risk" ... and that his actions put Floyd at risk of death or great harm.
That one is 41 to 57 months.
How can Chauvin not be convicted of something? That's a rhetorical question. I know the answer.
I have been following the trial, a little. The defense argues that Chauvin was distracted and unable to properly care for Floyd because he was focused on the threat from the crowd urging him not to kill Floyd.
This is why I couldn't be a lawyer -- not because I regard such an argument as unethical or inappropriate, but because that line of reasoning would never occur to me, and if it did, there's no way I could present that to a jury with a straight face.
Are there any Black people on the jury?
I am half paying attention but it's so infuriating and traumatic that I can't engage with it fully.
In other justice news, did y'all hear that a couple of guys caught red-handed beating a police officer were found not guilty (and alive!) this week? Of course, they were white police beating a Black undercover cop, so.
We don't have a system of justice. We have a system of control.
7: Right, that their actions were justified because they felt threatened by the situation, *which they had created*. The blatant bad-faith argumentation is just boggling.
8:
Black: three men, one woman
Multiracial: two women
White: six women, two men
Total 14. Curious if that's normal in MN in such cases, or if it's to make a hung jury easier...
Ah, missed that. But we don't know which two?
I don't, but the info's probably out there.
There were originally three alternates (all white), but IIRC one was excused after she said the news of the settlement between Minneapolis and the family had affected her opinion of the case.
I'm sure there's ample confirmation bias at work, but it sure seems to me like the trial has gone very badly for the defense so far.
I don't, but the info's probably out there.
When I was on a jury, they didn't actually tell us who was the alternates, IIRC, until it was time for us to go deliberate.
When I was on a jury we knew who the alternates were the whole time. One of them I remember quite well. He was 60ish gentleman, who was a pastor at a Black church on the weekends, and an Amtrak conductor during the week, and for the whole three weeks he wore three-piece suits with pocket squares that matched each of his ties.
I can't bear to watch the trial. Just seeing snippets on Twitter is bad enough. The Donald Williams witness who had to perform superhuman self-control and professionalism -- utterly horrifying. He witnesses a terrible murder and then has to be witness-prepped to deal with a hostile cross-examination in which the defense lawyer tries to make him an Angry Black Man. No wonder people die young from hypertension. The stress of American racism is unrelenting.
And then today, the 19-year-old clerk who told his manager that he was willing to have the $20 (for the allegedly fake bill George Floyd paid with) taken out of his own paycheck, but nooooo -- the manager insisted he confront Floyd and call the police. So, so, so many things wrong with the awful policies that low-wage workers have to deal with every day. It just brings up terrible memories of all the people I know who got fired or got their pay docked for stupid stuff that just served to remind them how disposable their bosses thought they were.
When I was a law clerk, the judge didn't tell the jurors who were the alternates until just before deliberations. Usual it was random but in one case, a lawyer accused a juror of misconduct after a few days of trial. Rather than embarrass the juror by calling him in to explain himself and probably sending him home early, the judge made him the second alternate. He was not needed for deliberations.
Sidebar: The accusation was an all-time great example of circumstantial evidence. A lawyer advised the judge that he had seen smoke rising out of a closed men's room stall, and that the apparent smoker's distinctive shoes were the same as those of juror X. He didn't actually observe either the smoking or the juror. Juror X had checked the non-smoker box on his jury questionnaire. Since the case was about asbestos exposure destroying the lungs of a pipefitter who was also a smoker, this was arguably relevant. In fact, the asbestos caused the lung damage and the smoking did not. This is a fact because 12 good citizens found it to be a fact.
When I was on a jury, they didn't actually tell us who was the alternates, IIRC, until it was time for us to go deliberate.
This was my experience as well, but I know different places (and judges?) do it differently. My mom was an alternate once and knew the whole time.
I also remember "voir dire" being pronounced voyer die-er, IIRC.
Pseud "Voyeur Dire" is still available.
One of the things I heard was that two of the witnesses were too young to have their faces shown on camera. Not too young to experience seeing someone murdered by police, though.
Matt Gaetz advises that age doesn't matter.
26: His workaround to the half your age plus seven rule was to date two teenagers at once. 2x17=34, but cancel culture just doesn't respect simple arithmetic.
Turns out that the antifa guy accused of shooting a right-wing agitator and subsequently gunned down by the cops both fired a gun at said posse of cops and also had the presence of mind to pocket his hot gun after bring shot. Before dying, one assumes.
https://twitter.com/ryanjhaas/status/1377328290185113604?s=21
(If you believe that, you'll also believe the Michael Brown investigation was an impartial fact-finding exercise.)
And the homicide chief of MPD testified Chauvin's use of force was "totally unnecessary". I guess this trial will tell us if anything at all prevails above the principle of white impunity.
I'm not following it closely or anything, but see/hear brief recaps most days I think. The prosecution seems to be doing very well, and their seems to have been a real effort from the PTB to cut this guy adrift. I guess we'll see what the defense case looks like.