The pressure on the jury would be immense, so I don’t think it’s possible to be purely neutral and impartial in this case. There’s the real risk of getting doxxed as a juror, not to mention riots setting off across the US and potentially the world. There were BLM/Floyd protests even here in Australia, which set off other protests relating to Aboriginal treatment at the hands of police. I think an acquittal would set off a giant clusterfuck, which the jurors would be well aware of. They may feel like they have to convict just to avoid any further escalation.
Long way to go but seeing as we are at the stage where the prosecution is making it’s case, I think we have moved passed murder. We’re no longer talking about Chauvin’s intent but whether his actions were what killed Floyd or not - that feels a very long road back to murder from there.
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In my view, this has been the key issue for the prosecution all along - the evidence that Floyd may have died from other causes, regardless of how awful Chauvin’s conduct was. I would expect the defense to put all their energy into that theory when it presents its case next week. I will also be really interested to see whether Chauvin takes the stand. Ordinarily, criminal defense lawyers do not like to call their clients because defendants are so damned unpredictable and tend to make terrible witnesses. However, in this case, Chauvin, an experienced cop, is probably accustomed to testifying, and he may be able to win over some jurors on the intent issue.
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I would bet that Chauvin, regardless of his experience, is fighting an uphill battle against the jurors. I don’t think that his testimony would be able to help him.
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delete
My understanding is that putting the defendant on the stand is almost always a bad idea and this case doesn’t seem like it has the criteria to be an exception. That is doubly true if the main focus of the defense is not about intent and rather on causation.
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I feel like this would be misstep. Better to let the toxicology report speak for itself.
While this is possible, I still think this would expose them to some unbelievably rough cross examination.
Just my $0.02
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English is not my first language, nor I know much about law. But defense is solid.
Toxicology shows that Floyd has consumed drugs and the drug actually causes loss of breathing.
They are also proving that the police officer is acting according to protocol and is waiting for medics to arrive.
According to this I think Chauvin will not get murder. Perhaps a manslaughter due to negligence. But again putting him behind bars for following protocol would be crazy. However defense needs to prove that Floyd was going to die anyway to escape manslaughter.
They don’t need to do prove anything. The prosecution needs to prove manslaughter
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It is the general rule, but not in this case. When you have the state admiting fault already, the defense needs to be the one proving.
This is interesting if you think about it. Chauvin is a government employee on trial for something he he did while performing his job and it’s the government that is prosecuting him.
Maybe it’s the politicians who do nothing to fix the communities that create the George Floyds, Jacob Blakes, Mike Browns, etc., and then put cops out there who represent the govt./law who have to deal with these typically low IQ, sociopathic criminals who are cancers that prey on their communities, who should be held accountable for the actions of police.
Instead, these politicians act like they are separate from the police, have no responsibility for the actions of police or police policy, and stir the pot of racism and divisiveness as they pander to the very people they are screwing.
All of these woke elites, white and black, when they have the financial ability to choose where they live, choose communities that are predominantly white and have police forces they would never want to abolish.
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Have not watched a single second of it. My only thoughts are it seems damn near impossible for this guy to have a fair trial. Well, extremely difficult.
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Not a lawyer, not following the trial closely. However, there are a dozen or more individual pieces of evidence I’ve seen that each make me seriously doubt that Chauvin’s knee really was critical in Floyd’s death. Toxicology alone makes me seriously doubt Chauvin killed him. That said, I don’t know the law. I think Chauvin is guilty of something, negligence, endangerment, excessive force but absolutely not murder.
Are any of those things punishable by the law or only by the work place?
If your asking me, I have no idea.
I think he needs to be guilty of those, and also guilty of knowing he was doing those things. I looked more into second degree manslaughter in MN yesterday. Apparently, the act needs to be both negligent and reckless (this is an interpretation from MN courts) for 2nd degree. The reckless part indicates that the act was known to put someone in danger before doing so.
So with this one, the amount of time the act took, and with the crowd informing Chauvin that he was going to kill Floyd, I don’t think it is deniable that he was reckless as well as negligent.
The defense is actually playing this really well. They are trying to convince that the crowd actually are to blame for Chauvin’s negligence and recklessness.
However I really doubt Chauvin will not be convicted at least in manslaughter. It is just not a fair trail and it is political. There is a lot of pressure and the man will be the black sheep.
If you think about it, it will be better for the world if he gets convicted than released. In the end at least this case will be over. If he is not convicted - new riots, new talks about racism and etc. Nobody needs this.
I agree that just throwing cops into these neighborhoods and saying, “stop crime” is a crappy way to deal with it. However, blaming politicians for not doing anything strips personal responsibility from the conversation. They didn’t create the atmosphere in these communities and they can’t fix them. No amount of money, or planted trees, or low income housing upgrades will fix fatherless homes and broken families.
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I actually feel more the opposite. It’s what the politicians have done that’s a large part of the problem.
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They most certainly did.