Derek Chauvin may have caused George Floyd’s death, but the established medical facts alone would seem to preclude certainty. According to the coroner’s report, Floyd suffered from “cardiopulmonary arrest”; he had “severe arteriosclerotic heart disease” and “hypertensive heart disease”, and had recently recovered from Covid-19, a destructive cardiovascular condition (even in asymptomatic patients).
He had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, a potentially lethal combination. He was obviously agitated; he physically struggled with police with enough determination to prevent them from putting him in the back of a vehicle. During a prior and very similar arrest he was hospitalised, leading to concerns about the possibility that his agitation would cause him to have a spontaneous heart attack. He complained of an inability to breathe before he was ever put on the ground.
So why did the jury convict on all counts? And how did they arrive at their decision so quickly? The probable answer is disturbing, and has deep implications for justice in America.
Chauvin, it seems, was pre-judged — exactly the thing our system of jurisprudence was designed to prevent. And I don’t mean this in abstract terms: the jury’s unusual rush to judgement was also manifest in almost every conversation I had about Floyd’s death with people who would normally have retained the formality of saying Chauvin was “accused of”, “suspected of” or “charged with” murder. In this case, however, people simply insisted that Chauvin was guilty of murder.
Perhaps even more unsettling was how this sense of prejudgment was mirrored in the many claims of victory by protestors, rioters and their prominent supporters who, following the verdict, were quick to take credit for forcing the outcome. In other words, they sought to influence the jury’s verdict, and were sure that they had.
Until recently in America, it was understood that, even when the facts made a person’s guilt seem inescapable, the accused was formally innocent right up until the moment that they were convicted by an impartial jury of their peers. And conviction in America was no small formality. Our founders bent over backwards to give the accused the absolute benefit of even a single, reasonable doubt.
That counterintuitive structure of our legal system, burdening the state and arming the defence, exists for a crucial reason: to protect citizens from the vast power of the state and its frightening capacity to usurp liberty. But America allowed itself to skip the formalities when it came to Derek Chauvin; we all knew, thanks to a shocking video, what had happened before any of the considerable exculpatory context was known.
Stacking the deck in favour of the accused is not a perfect solution. It doesn’t always work, and when it does the results can be decidedly unjust. But that strong preference for freeing the guilty over incarcerating the innocent is arguably the most civilised thing about us. The fact that it actually structures the proceedings in all our criminal courts, and that it has for two and a half centuries, is proof of our conviction in the lofty promises of our founding documents. It is the principle on which we must agree, and to which we must aspire. Indeed, to surrender it would lead us quickly backward, to a much more primitive and brutal society.
And here with this trial we seem to have taken the first step. We, collectively, have relaxed the most fundamental rule. Today, if the mob is convinced and motivated enough, their cause becomes the righteous one. Whether jurors accede to this out of fear for their own safety, or out of fear of the damage that may be done to innocent people if their verdict reignites violence, or because they are convinced by the mob that there is some higher principle whose value exceeds their duty to the accused, it must not stand. The will of the mob has no place in court. Likewise, no conviction that emerges from a mob-influenced court can be legitimate.
For as hard and uncomfortable as it may be to accept, the best chance that men like George Floyd have is a justice system so impartial and robust that it can protect people like Derek Chauvin. That is what is now in jeopardy.
Liberty is precious. It is not a privilege granted by the state; it is a right of every citizen, and the power to deprive a person of it carries with it an immense moral burden to ensure that their guilt is “beyond a reasonable doubt”. That is our Founding Fathers’ brilliant insight; that is the wisdom we now find endangered.
And so the conviction of Derek Chauvin sets a disturbing precedent. Today, when people are angry enough to demand something — when they are willing to march and burn and disrupt and intimidate — their understanding of events becomes gospel, and a trial is just one more tool at their disposal. The right to a fair trial is suddenly turned into a mere privilege — something that is only guaranteed so long as the mob isn’t against you.
America’s founders were a living paradox: though upstanding statesmen of wealth and privilege, they were obsessed with the rights that protect the powerless. And it is the powerless — the downtrodden, oppressed and marginalised — who will suffer most if we renounce these protections. If we allow exceptions to our once-universal commitment to the rights of the accused, if we agree that prejudice has a legitimate role inside our courts, the greatest burden is sure to fall on populations that face the most prejudice outside our courts. In America, at least, it is safe to assume that the lives that will be worst-harmed will be black lives.
A year on from Floyd’s death, it is not the frightening tyranny of the state to which we have surrendered, nor is it the mob’s terrifying thirst for vengeance. Rather, it is a combination of the two: the desperation that justice would be delivered to a man whom they believed so depraved that he was willing to rob another of his life while the world watched on.
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SubscribeJustice is blind for a reason. It is blind to emotions, hurt, victimhood, personal convictions, ideologies and beliefs. It weighs evidence, starting with a presumption of innocence and demands that in criminal cases, the state proves guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Justice remains objective and impartial.
In George Floyd case, justice was wide-eyed and overwhelmed.
When I saw British cops taking the knee at BLM protests, I knew that Justice as an ideal had lost and the mob had won.
It’s a worrying situation. The policewoman who will apparently go unpunished for joining in with the “Free, free Palestine” chants is further evidence of the slippery slope on which we find ourselves.
Further evidence of the compromising of impartial justice in the US is the fact that almost all the rioters, looters and arsonists who spent all last summer terrorising American cities including Portland, Minneapolis, LA, New York and DC have been released, mostly without charge, while 400 of the Republican supporters who trespassed at the White House on January 6th are still in prison, many held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.
The US is in deep, deep trouble as Weinstein’s excellent article implies.
The only criticism I make is that he might have spent more time talking about the role of the news media in America which is becoming a “clear and present danger” in its determination to sow division and hatred through the promulgation of false narratives.
An impartial, responsible news media without an agenda would have responded to the aftermath of the George Floyd killing by pointing out that blacks in America are no more likely to be killed by cops than white people (in fact they are slightly less likely).
But CNNs and MSNBC and their ilk were more interested in undermining Trump and the Republicans than in reporting the news.
Yes the media treatment of Nicholas Sandmann the Covington Catholic High School student and the video of his encounter with Native American activist Nathan Phillips was a confirmation, a frightening one for Nicholas, of how ‘pictures’ can lie by omission. There needs to be an unbiased (and brave) ‘audience’ to ensure all sides of an event are known. Also the members of an American jury should not be known to the public and they certainty should not be on tv after a trial giving their opinion and why the jury voted as it did. No jury member under such as system can be free from influence whether they acknowledge it to themselves or not. Imagine being the one hold on the Derek Chauvin jury arguing for a lesser charge?
Well said re the Covington affair. The kid was viciously mistreated and appallingly prejudged.
Well said.
Inviting the Floyd family to a day at the white house is a strange thing to do as its usually reserved for some act of bravery. Nothing against his relatives but as Edmund Burke said ‘Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist’-looking at the reactions of the political participants there, who celebrated one year from the death of ‘ martyr’ george , leaves little room to expect justice for either the appeal or the other upcoming cases.
Much as the Floyd family obviously loved him & now miss him ( I don’t think he had any contact with his daughter) with all the money & attention they have now gained they must think ‘Nothing in his life became him as the leaving of it’ Macbeth.
$24 million buys a lot of bling.
You mean the Capitol, and, yes, if you attack the symbols of the powerful in the US the response will be far harsher than if you just make trouble on Main Street. As for the rioters, the Established Order has long since crushed the Left, but the Right, although scattered, is still in the field, so they remain active targets.
Please explain what you mean by “crushed the left”.
It’s all about perspective. Mine is that the judiciary, media, law enforcement and politicians have given the blm/antifa rioters free rein to burn, destroy and in some cases actually set up their own no-go areas. In the rare occasions where arrests occur the individuals are generally back on the street within hours thanks to bail funds donated in $millions by Established Order (as you put it) bien pensants. If that’s what being crushed looks like ………
Thanks for the correction re White House/Capitol.
I was getting muddled up with the Leftist agitators who attacked the White House during the BLM protests in the US.
Given that the White House is also a ‘symbol of the powerful’ one would assume that, by your logic, those ‘protestors’ were treated with the same harshness as those who trespassed at the Capitol.
Perhaps hundreds of them are currently locked up in solitary confinement?
In fact all the BLM rioters who tried to tear down the fences around the White House and assaulted police officers are going about their lives untroubled by the justice system.
There is great disparity in the treatment of left and right in the Democrat-run cities (with their politically compromised judges and DAs).
The United States will not hold together when people are treated differently based on their political affiliations.
At least one of the protestors who trespassed at the Capitol, who video evidence clearly demonstrate were invited in by police, was shot dead. Is that not harsh enough for you? Others have been arrested, and charged, and imprisoned.
I fear you have misunderstood my comment.
They trespassed the Capitol. The policeman who supposedly died, wasn’t injured by the crowd as most of the US media reported, but was ok and died of an unrelated stroke in a hospital in the evening. Only many months afterwards the left wing media had to admit, that they were wrong. Seems also nobody reported about the circumstances why a young unarmed female veteran was shot by un undercover cop.
“Supposedly died”?
Supposedly died as a direct result of the incursion.
Actually, proportionate to the population size, blacks are more likely to be killed by police than whites. Proportionate to the number of police encounters, blacks are less likely to be killed by police than whites. A black person is more likely to have police encounters in a context of a crime in progress. More encounters create a larger chance that something will go wrong in the law enforcement escalation.
By the way, the number of unarmed people killed by police is very small for both races. And yes, ideally, we would want it to be zero, but we are all human and accidents happen so zero is not likely. Perhaps, there is a way to lower it even more through better training, etc. Ultimately, however, the way to bring the second number down is to bring the crime rate down and, thus, to bring down the police encounters. This requires complex socio-economic changes that BLM supporters don’t want to talk about.
My friends who are BLM supporters, focus on the first number only (% of the population). When I bring up the second number, they say that it should not matter – they want to see equity relative to the population size. And, yes, mass media takes the same view.
Yes, I’ve seen the same data. It is surprising to me the number of Blacks who don’t obey the orders of police in a tense situation. This explains the greater number being killed by police.
I’m glad your BLM supporting friends are (presumably) still your friends, even after you’ve challenged their views with actual facts. Many friendships and even family relationships seem to have been severed over this issue.
One fact you didn’t mention, but presumably are also aware of, is that UNARMED (as in not with any weapon, firearm, knife, etc) black people who are not fighting with the police or resisting arrest are statisically no less likely to be killed by police than are any other group.
That should really be the statistic anyone is concerned about. And the vast majority of police shootings in the US are of armed suspects. Here in Canada (where all police – urban, regional, provincial or federal – are also armed) it seems to be more widely understood that messing in that way with an armed police force is suicidal. You can resent the fact that they’re armed all you want, but still, if you don’t want to die you do as they tell you, and complain later.
Ask your friends next time what they think of prison where 95% are males. Should that become 50-50 male/female?
Excellent point regarding the media who now apparently consider themselves so important that they have taken the role of prosecutor and censor at the same time.
If she was off duty I see no problem with that.
She wasn’t off duty. She was in full uniform, and was policing the event.
Thanks for the information, Rocky. I have been astounded by the various relatives and an American FB friend’s vitriol and demands for justice regarding the January 6th event whilst at the same time dismissing my points about the level of destruction that came out of the George Floyd riots. The impact of it goes on in western cultures with Critical Race Theory gaining ground and influence in a number of spheres. In the UK, there have been a number of cases where white people have been precluded from having a say regarding issues of race; their voices have been effectively silenced. Demands for the ending of control of those perceived to be of in places of privilege (mostly white men, and particularly the ‘ruling’ classes but also the proletariat) and have been ongoing and vociferous. As it relates to male violence against women, a recent example has been the demand by Baroness Jenny Jones, member of the Green Party, who has called for a curfew on men after 6pm following the recent disappearance of Sarah Evarard. The Greens would make it a permanent solution and, incredibly, the British authorities are considering it as a temporary solution but one that is, thankfully, way down the list. In one sense, it is an understandable solution, but it is not the answer to a society that is sick and needs to redress the contradictory way it portrays women. But this indicative of a much wider and more pernicious problem – a culture that essentially is losing its way to and kowtowing to those who shout loudest and longest.
Hello again, Rocky, I was disturbed by what you wrote in regards to the lack of charges laid against the summer rioters but the incarceration and solitary confinement of 400 Republican supporters. What I don’t understand though is why 400 have been imprisoned when only a handful broke into the Whitehouse itself?
–
Take a knee or not. It’s everyone’s individual right to demonstrate or express themselves. Either way, respect their choice.
Not the Police while they are on duty
I agree; when they’re in uniform they represent the police force, not themselves as individuals. How are people at a synagogue threatened by a “Free Palestine” terrorist supposed to trust such a biased police force to protect them?
They don’t represent the police, they represent the Queen, and by extension they represent the rule of law.
Police have been Politicised by Paid Police &crime Commissioners ..& Media Spokemen..Not Good..see 1984 ……
Not in my face! If I pay to watch a sports event, I don’t use my money to allow someone to express a political, religious, economic, etc. view. It’s the same with a religious service. If the preacher rants on a political view, I’m out of there. Many of us for the same reason now ignore the “games”.
If George Floyd was white, Derek Chauvin would still be going to work every day. There wouldn’t have been a case. No charges would have been brought. We know that because there are parallel examples. Welcome to the new racial justice!
The more so if Derek were black. Nevertheless, if George were a rich white man, I think the police would be facing a suit.
How many rich white men would have
or have been
Of how many could it be said that
I’d say none. The only way this could have happened to a “rich white man” would be if he somehow had behaved like a career criminal black member of the underclass.
one rich man – OJ Simpson – did worse than having some drugs in his system. He killed two people and was found not guilty. Hardly anyone thinks Simpson was innocent, but he was wealthy and his team was quick to brand the LAPD as racist.
If he was found not guilty, then he didn’t kill two people, did he?
The likelihood is that his son did it and he was protecting him.
It only means the jury voted to acquit, a verdict that had more to do with retribution for Rodney King and the hostility between the LAPD and the city’s black community than with two dead people.
Absolutely no one has ever pursued “the likelihood” of his son doing anything. It wasn’t OJ’s son who had previously beaten Nicole, nor was it his son who was hiding the back of the Bronco threatening suicide. The man got away with murder and even members of the jury have suggested as much. Perhaps you’ve noticed that OJ has been a pariah for most of his post-acquittal life.
Indeed a civil jury ruled he was responsible for the 2 deaths and required to pay millions in damages, after which he declared bankruptcy.
But this was after the trial and media circus surrounding the alleged guilty man being set free. It is as perverse a verdict in its way as setting free those who admit their guilt for criminal damage.
It was his son who had been arrested four times previously including for assault with a deadly weapon, who had violently assaulted two girlfriends including one with a knife, had been sectioned, was on drugs for clinical anger issues, owned a cap with dog hairs on it that was found at the site, and owned a knife identical to the one that caused the injuries. He had no alibi and his father hired a defense team for him even though nobody had accused him of anything – why?
They should both have been hanged if only to “encourage the others”.
Now, that’s justice!!
Did he have a motive? Does the overwhelming physical evidence OJ left everywhere have no significance? Do you think the moon landing was faked?
He was mentally ill and with a history of violence against women.
OJ left physical evidence because he had lived there. His son didn’t.
Yes; didn’t he go to prison for several years for taking part in an armed robbery? And in the wrongful death civil case against him, over the murder of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown, he was found guilty, because there is less burden of proof in civil cases. So he had to pay out a huge sum to Goldman’s and Brown’s families over the murders.
OJ was pronounced guilty in a private suit against him, but never paid up.
What a strange comment! You draw attention to the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ point – we must never ever assume his guilt, despite the families winning multi-million lawsuits in civil court – then make a fatuous claim without any evidence whatsoever that, ‘the likelihood is that his son did it’ ! Amazingly wrong-headed.
He was found guilty at a civil trial where the burden of proof is not as onerous. So, yes, he was guilty.
It’s also therefore less persuasive.
That he was found not guilty has nothing to do with him doing it or not. However the son angle is certainly possible. Certainly, if his look could kill… much anger in that man.
The whole point of this article is to highlight the importance of presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt. Yet you seem to imply Simpson should have been tried by the court of public opinion.
He was tried in a court of law and got a verdict very few people believe is accurate. My response was to the comment about a “rich white man” would have fared in a Floyd type of case. A rich black man fared quite well. The common thread is not race, it’s rich.
I think if OJ had been a rich white man that, based on the evidence, he would certainly have been found guilty.
It is almost universally recognized that the Jury made their decision as a response to the recent Rodney King story, knowing OJ was guilty but letting him go for their political purposes.
I think it was Alan Dershowitz, one of OJ’s defence team, who said something like “we did not win the case, the prosecution lost it.”
And how many rich white men would have attempted to pawn off a fake $20 bill to begin with?
Hunter Biden?
Did you read Tom Wolfe’s “Bonfire of the Vanities”?
A work of fiction…
The city had already paid damages of $25 million to Floyd’s family BEFORE the trial of Chauvin.
I’m not sure about that – look up the case of Justine Damond, white Australian shot dead by a black Minneapolis officer in 2017.
He was prosecuted successfully for 3rd degree murder and is in prison (appeals are ongoing). No riots anywhere, of course.
Justice done right here. R.I.P my friend Justine, who was in the street in her Pajamas reporting a suspected rape.
The facts of that incident are shocking. The cop fired across his partner at a person whom he had no reason to believe was armed.
Rubbish. The Aussie woman’s killer cop found guilty and is in prison.
I think the point is, there were no nation-wide violent riots after her death.
Had Floyd less melanin, making his skin white, HE would be alive today.
Then why did Tony Timpa, a white man, die in exactly the same situation, a year before Floyd did? In fact, in that case (unlike that of Floyd), there was clear evidence that the police had asphyxiated him.
Pro-Trump demonstrators face decades of imprisonments for walking past unconcerned Capitol Guards and having the temerity to sit in Pelosi’s chair. The never to be named person who executed the unarmed Ashli Babbit faces no consequence for his action. Brian Sicknick lies in state due to a blatant and incendiary lie about how he met his death. US justice has crossed the Rubicon.
Yes, as the Horowitz guy said on the Rubin Report the other day, the US is evolving into a fascist state. The Democrats have weaponized 6 January in the same that Hitler weaponized the Reichstag fire. Meanwhile, BLM/Antifa mobs who have burned, looted and killed are allowed to run free after being repeatedly arrested then released.
Yes, that’s one of the most disturbing things about Portland. Antifa thugs are consistently arrested and then released without charge. History will not judge Portland’s mayor (and police commissioner), Ted Wheeler, kindly. He’s a disgraceful enabler of appalling thuggery and violence.
Because BLM money went straight to the present government, so obviously they returned the favour . Just before the trial the Floyd family received $27 million-& thats on top of celebrity money to Floyd’s children-which clearly showed they expected a guilty verdict, endorsed by the President and other politicians. It was a show trial to pretend that America still has justice. He who pays the piper calls the tune
Biden did all but canonize him, and Pelosi did that.
Partly as a result of this several counties have recently voted to leave Oregon and become part of Idaho. Whether or not that goes ahead remains to be seen, but it is quite an indication of popular discontent.
Depends who writes the history doesn’t it? I believe this is called “controlling the narrative”?
I believe that the turning point was James Comey inexplicably deciding not to act on the Hilary Clinton email impropriety.
Statist politicians, media, judiciary and law enforcement looked at each other and said “Wow, from now on we and our allies can do whatever we like without fear of being held to account. And as for our enemies…………”.
Ironically according to the many protest singers from Woody Guthrie to Jello Biafra USA has been a fascist state since day 1. TBH i think a state can be violently authoritarian and mired in crime without being in any way fascist.
My positive response to your post ‘Awaiting for approval’ because I was careless enough to refer to certain historical figures and events.
A recent post of mine went for moderation because I mentioned ‘a c0ck tail of meds’. Took me a while to figure out which word was offensive in the long post.
I had a comment of mine refused for H0m0 sapiens!
So much for AI being smarter than us. Maybe we should change it to he/hermo sapiens, then it would likely pass.
All the more likely that a “coalition of law abiding states” develops in response. Whether they can right the ship of state or whether they’ll have to secede is the question.
Well said indeed Sir!
When the supposed guarantor of the Free World behaves like common barbarian thug, what hope is there?
Excellent Article. After your talk with Freddy I had gotten a strong feel – maybe the San Francisco, Portland thing – that you were one of the Arch-Liberals, and am glad to hear what I have been saying since the verdict – that it was outrageous. Chauvin was innocent of the charge of murder under the jury obligations, and the burden of proof.
Looking at the evidence it is absolutely impossible to not have a reasonable doubt (the requirement for this verdict) that this was murder. Then the the jury was unanimous? How could every one of them go with that – my guess is they were in Physical FEAR for their lives if they dared to vote wrong. A gun was held to their heads essentially.. Exactly similar to how the Mafia in Italy terrorize the courts to achieve their desired outcome. The refusing reasonable doubt, and the the unanimity of the 12, that shows it was purely a jury violating their instructions. Justice did not die because it was pure wishing not to be killed making the 12 strong jury vote as it did – and one can not expect them to have voted differently under those conditions, but it showed how Liberals are slowly killing justice as they killed decency, and unless they stop, it will be finished one day.
Bret is traditionally liberal, but he is not woke/progressive.
The idea of innocent until proved guilty is being done away with – #MeToo has shown that a simple accusation with no court case can be enough to lose men their job, their reputation and in some case their life – anyone remember the Welsh politician who took his life after an accusation?
Innocent until proven guilty was done away with by UK Govt years ago. Unexplained Wealth seizures etc. Accusations going on your criminal record. So many cases where the Govt says we believe this and you will have to sue us to prove your innocence and/or get your money/life back. Same in US with huge amounts of asset seizure by police just on suspicion of wrongdoing.
Needs huge reform to get us back to previous fairness.
Also “hate crimes”. No proof/evidence of offence required whatsoever. Provided the accusation is from a member of a protected, minority group…
And who can forget the president of the US going on TV, hoping for the ‘right’ verdict before the verdict was out.
Indeed. Totally abhorrent.
Yes. Very not good. Shocking, really. And imagine if the brassy Orange Man from Queens had done such a thing …
Yes, good point. Perhaps the ultimate result of unrestrained liberalism is the tyranny of bad ideas run amok. The “fetish of equality” becomes “all ideas are equal”?
”But though his role in the events is well-known, his impact on the functioning of George Floyd’s heart is much less clear, and his deepest motivations remain a mystery. It seems to me, therefore, a textbook case of reasonable doubt. Not only are there reasons to question Chauvin’s guilt, but it is hard to imagine how an impartial jury, following standard instructions, could have escaped that conclusion”
The only correct conclusion possible.
Yet, the president of the USA concluded after the trail:
“It was a murder in full light of day, and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see, for so many, it feels like it took all of that for the judicial system to deliver just basic accountability.”
Makes one wonder where the real evil of today resides, in a jail or an oval office somewhere in the USA.
The subject of race was never brought up in the trial, so in effect the mob did not get what they wanted. The guilty verdict did not prove the “crime” was racially motivated, much less that the PD was steeped in “systemic racism”.
There really is nothing new about the Chauvin case. Juries have always prejudged to some extent. For a long time in America, that prejudgment was racial — hence our term “prejudice”. Yes, the global video coverage is new, but the basic problem of people knowing the story of a high-profile case before going into the jury box is as old as the Republic. Do you really think Aaron Burr would have gotten a fair trial? Or John Wilkes Booth?
Winston Churchill famously lamented democracy as the “worst system invented… except for all the others.” Similarly, being tried by 12 people who were too dumb or lazy to escape jury duty is far from ideal — it’s just the least bad option.
I wonder if Chauvin would have been better off waiving his jury trial rights and allowing the case to be tried by a judge?
“There really is nothing new about the Chauvin case. Juries have always prejudged to some extent. For a long time in America, that prejudgment was racial”
Here you go…. the same old, same old. Have you been on a Jury? It is a very solemn obligation from my experience. Even idiots feel the burden of making a fair verdict. You must never have sat on one – to say what you say.
I would ask the posters here who have served on a jury if their experience was like mine, where EVERY member felt a huge obligation to be Just in their verdict, even if they wished to go the other way. The reason they work is this mysterious and powerful feel you get when sitting in that chair up there. The system has evolved to make it so, and those jurors are almost always going to do their best. That is why I say the Jury were in fear for their life, for every one of them to vote guilty. Really – when you sit in the jury chair, it is a very serious feel indeed – , you cheapen the whole thing with your cynicism.
Well said. Have a look at one of the jurors, Brandon Mitchell, who has admitted to lying about his political views in order to get on the jury.
I once sat on a jury and after that experience decided if I ever faced a court charge I would want to be tried by a judge. Not a jury.
That’s an interesting perspective, Stephen. Thanks. I have never served on a jury. I’ve only been empaneled for a drug case once, and since I believe in drug legalization and jury nullification, they weren’t interested in me. Faced with a courtroom I might make the same decision. The law says I have a “right” to a jury trial — it doesn’t say I’m required to exercise it.
I doubt Chauvin would have gotten convicted on all counts from a judge, but judges are elected in Minnesota, so the judge finding innocent across the board is almost inconceivable.
Jury if you were guilty, judge if you were innocent?
That may very well be, but the jury in this case was so intimidated, so fearful for the lives of their families, so anxious about their neighbourhoods, that they returned a verdict which didn’t make sense, and they did it in very quick time. They found the accused guilty of both manslaughter and murder at the same time and on the same occasion. In other words they panicked and said guilty to all three charges put in front of them because they dared not return a single verdict of not guilty.
You clearly don’t understand what the charges mean if you think he couldn’t be guilty of both and I’m not saying he was guilty.
It was one of, if the not the greatest miscarriage of justice in US History.
A most fiercely competitive field it must be said.
The late great Evan Whitton had a catalogue of riotously funny Australian jury stories ( many out in the Web). My favourite was the jury whose banker foreman encouraged them to a speedy “not guilty” verdict so that he could play golf on the Friday afternoon. No wonder Evan was in favour of the European inquisitorial system of justice.
Not that British jury stories inspire any greater confidence. There was the occasion when a double murder case crashed and burnt after it was revealed that the jury had tried to contact the deceased via a ouija board.
The two massive problems are the secrecy of the deliberations and the lack of a requirement for the jurors to give reasons for their verdict. So not even serious academic research is possible.
“The two massive problems are the secrecy of the deliberations and the lack of a requirement for the jurors to give reasons for their verdict. So not even serious academic research is possible.”
This is a plus, in my view. We can see you’re the kind of person who trusts in the benevolence of the State and the taken-for-granted ‘intelligence’ of academics, so you’re beyond hope.
I think it can be a plus and also a problem.
I have done jury service in the UK and was honoured to be selected as foreman. I was interested to do it and proud to take such an important role in the working of our justice system. There was a varying degree of dedication to the decision but all seemed interested enough to take it seriously. Still believe that we made the right decision.
I to have done Jury service but with a different experience. A majority wanted a quick decision so they could get back to their normal life and 3 of my fellow jurors must have been listening to completely different evidence and statements to the rest of us judging by their contribution. We also had one juror who stated that he would never believe anything said by a member of the police force. Majority verdict with one juror saying she would go with the majority.
I have done jury duty too, and for a first degree murder trial at that. We took quite a long time to reach the guilty verdict, mostly because one of our members was unfortunately dumber than a bag of rocks. The plaintiff in qustion was accused of being the middle-man for a hired killing of his friend’s ex-wife. That juror had a very hard time getting his head around the fact that, under Canadian law, if you pay for or arrange a planned and deliberate murder, you are as guilty under the law as the person who actually committed the act. We finally had to get the judge to talk to him directly and explain it to him.
Goodness. I wonder where that solemn obligation you describe was when the jurors found OJ Simpson not guilty? In all the millions of words written about that case there has never been any suggestion that they felt their lives to be at risk.
Times were very different!
I’ve been on a grand jury. The jurors saw evidence pertaining to more than 80 cases involving violent crimes. We even got to pose questions to witnesses. Yes, we the jurors would get a chance to ask questions.
We did take our job seriously. I was pleased with that. But things are different in the court room. I’ve seen prejudices at work in the court room.
I’ve also spent 20 years in law enforcement, although my work involved civil litigation 99.2% of the time. It did not involve violent crimes. But even that experience demonstrated how noisy the legal process can be — how ineluctably noisy. Most of the time my colleagues and I would have to make our cases not to a jury but to a judge. Think Russian Roulette. You never know what crazy judge you might get stuck with. It matters.
There was also a matter of Russian Roulette when it came to investigating a matter. The matter falls one person’s desk; a recommendation obtains. The matter falls on another person’s desk. A different recommendation may obtain. The process is noisy.
I have not served on a grand jury, but I know 2 people who have. When they described it to me, it struck me that the process seemed both far more interested in getting at the truth, and far more prone to running away politically.
Jurors are spectators today, being presented a set of competing plays (the judge serving as script editor). Allowing juries to ask questions directly would re-center the courtroom back to the jury. Whether that would be good or bod, I’m not sure.
“I would ask the posters here who have served on a jury if their experience was like mine, where EVERY member felt a huge obligation to be Just in their verdict,”
I have served in the UK three times, but only once got into court (pleas changed, etc.) I concur with your remark.
Yes, I have been on a Jury. Just one period of service, and two cases (I think and hope that I am now too old to be called again). In both cases the jury reached the wrong verdict, although in neither case was it very important. The first should never have come to the Crown Court (a serious offence was the charge, whereas the actual offence was minor and could have been dealt with by a magistrate: fortunately the judge recognised this). In the second case the jury was convinced that the complainant was just trying to get compensation under the victim support scheme.
Rather disturbingly, half-way through the first case, at the end of the day I passed within 2 metres of the defendant (who seemed to be treating the whole thing as a joke)..
So I agree with Stephen T. If I were up before a court I would want to be tried by a judge. Judges are trained to assess evidence (including its relevance), and have long experience of doing so. Juries do not.
Not me but my partner who was horrified by the lack of attention and understanding demonstrated by those on the jury with her. The prosecution evidence was ineptly presented, the jury, when they were listening, only gave credence to the last person to testify and, during the deliberations, one member was concerned only with the fact that it had started to rain and they had left washing hanging out.
I hasten to add, this was a long time ago and she did not discuss any aspect of the case with me at the time.
Sanford, you are correct, I have been called once and recused for my political views. I’m glad your jury took it seriously, and I think most do (hence my “least bad” comment above.) However, juries are populated by the “general public”, not by unHerd commenters. While the average man means well, the average man is… well, average. Your jury of peers will not be like your college roomates, but more like the D+ to C students in your high school.
You’re taking that person and demanding they understand subtle differences of law and to assemble a coherent story from very detailed testimony, all while he’s worried about who’s picking up his kids from school and how he will pay his bills with missing 4 days of work this month. The system is structured to run roughshod over jurors — not surprising since the system was designed by lawyers.
There may not be a better system (utopias are almost illusions), but we deceive ourselves if we believe the current one is ideal.
Even in the 50’s (in the UK) for those sitting on a Jury in a Capital Trial it was obvious that something was very wrong.
The idea that a guilty verdict would send the defendant to the gallows in just over three weeks was just too much for some.
Thus Justice failed purely on grounds of squeamishness! And the guilty survived.
When I was required to do jury duty for a first degree murder trial, fortunately it was in Canada in the 1980s and we had abolished the death penalty (for everything other than treason; I think that’s still on the books, as it is also in the UK) in the 1960s, so I didn’t have that on my conscience. As it was, when we found the suspect guilty he got the automatic 25-to-life sentence. Which means, if he’s still alive (he was in his late 40s at the time of th trial) he could well be out on parole by now. It was still a tough decision to make, knowing it meant locking someone up for at least 25 years, but it didn’t trouble my conscience much, considering what he’d done.
I imagine it must have been pretty horrific to be in a coutroom back in the day when death sentences would be pronounced, much less be on the jury. Mnd you, there are always going to be some murderers who just need to be killed and over whom it would be impossible to feel any guilt. But probably the majority of condemed people weren’t really the epitome of evil, just damaged people who made a lot of very bad choices.
A typically thoughtful piece from Bret, with which I concur. I would encourage everyone to listen to the Dark Horse podcasts he does with his partner Heather Heying every week. I watch them on Sunday morning, not least because their calm and soothing reason helps me to recover from the night before.
The dark horse podcast is amazing – someone please introduce me to a better one!
There was much discussion about this case before the trial. Everyone had an opinion and the TV news programmes and the internet were full of such chat.
That doesn’t happen in the same way here in the UK. Has anyone heard any detailed discussion of the individual accused of the murder of Sarah Everard? You won’t until after the trial is concluded.
It always amazes me how the US don’t seem to respect this simple principle. Don’t talk about the case while it is sub judice. That is how cases like Chauvin’s beome skewed and a fair trial becomes harder to achieve.
I don’t know if the verdicts were justified as I didn’t follow the detail of the trials but it is clear Chauvin had much less of a chance of a fair trial than he would if were being prosecuted in the UK.
So when the author says “presumption, burden and standard are woven into the fabric of America, and because they have been among our most important exports”, he is spinning a line.
“That doesn’t happen in the same way here in the UK”.
Dream on, dreamer. In the UK you can rot away in a prison cell without any trial at all.
Mr Phillips was refering to the fact that in the uk yuo can be prosecuted for broadcasting or printing information that will prejudice a trial. And people have been prosecuted for this.
The technical term is “On Remand”.
How very quaint.
That is 777 days on remand this day, 25 may.
More than two years!
What on earth for?
Chauvin has the right of appeal, and his defense team has several things to work with: members of Congress AND a president pretty much demanding a certain verdict, a juror with activist ties who should have never been seated, an alternate juror who afterward admitting the verdict was in no small part out of fear of retribution. The jury pulled the unusual trick of convicting Chauvin for an intentional act AND an unintentional act.
No, George Floyd should not have died that day. He should not have put himself in that position, either. The videotape shows “I can’t breathe” was said while Floyd was still in the car. The audio includes multiple people telling Floyd to quit resisting. In the meantime, anti-police fervor has led to crime spikes in virtually every major city.
Obviously you don’t understand what the charges mean, second degree murder can be caused by an unintentional act.
Second-degree murder differs from first in not being pre-meditated. Otherwise, it carries the intent to harm another person. Manslaughter is more heat of the moment.
Chauvin either intended to cause grave harm, including death, or he didn’t. It can’t be both. But, please; lecture me some more.
Ok since you asked. You can be found guilty of second degree murder if the act showed extreme indifference to the value of human life, which in this case the act did,
there doesn’t have to be the intent to cause harm. What is in dispute is whether the act caused Floyd’s death.
The definition of second-degree murder clearly states an intent to cause harm. That’s not a gray area. You believe that Chauvin’s action showed indifference. Okay, but that’s not part of what defines manslaughter. All I’ve said is he cannot be guilty of both.
How utterly ridiculous! Which cretin thought that up?
He or she should have strangled at birth. as we used to say.
I would question that this was the day justice died in the USA, I would argue there are several cases, not the least of which being OJ Simpson but that is for another day.
This was a case of mob rule, and the mob included the president of the USA, former president Obama and multiple politicians who should have some sense of the position they occupy and act apart from the mob instead of joining in. The very fact that the verdict was given so quickly and apparently from a jury who were aware that their names would be known is a real deriliction of justice.
Of course the very fact that you have written this article is good enough for the mob to pronounce judgement on you as a racist. This is the world of BLM and mob facism we live in. The unfortunate aspect of BLM is that for those of us who consider ourselves relatively impartial we have been pushed to a very partial state of mind now, and I for one certainly have no unconscious bias of how I feel towards the devotees of BLM.
I can’t disagree with the author’s points. Derek Chauvin most certainly did not get a fair trial. However, he does seem to have a rather idealised idea of how justice works in America. The prisons in that country are full of innocent people, many convicted with a death sentence, on the flimsiest of evidence, because they are too poor to hire a decent lawyer.
I’ve read that Chauvin was represented by a single attorney but the State fielded 12 attorneys – who swamped Chauvin’s attorney with masses of information.
The witnesses too, police and medical, piled in on the prosecution side. No-one dared give evidence for Chauvin. But even so, if you followed the trial, looked at all the footage, not just that taken from the other side of the road for a short time, listened to the arguments, and took in what the coroner said, you could not but conclude the charges of murder were unjustified and the charge of manslaughter was open to reasonable doubt.
But by then you also knew there was absolutely no chance of the logical verdict being given. At the very least, the judge should have suspended the trial.
Quite right.
I appreciate your point. Bret does lay out the ideal. Implementing and securing the ideal is another matter. The legal process is noisy. Always has been; always will be. But is the system more compromised these days? As opposed to when? Maybe it is. How could we measure and evaluate competing hypotheses? Hmm …
The prisons in that country are full of innocent people, many convicted with a death sentence, on the flimsiest of evidence, Speak of evidence, where is yours on these claims? The overwhelming bulk of the prison population got there the old-fashion way – by earning it. Might some be innocent? Probably. But some is nowhere “full” and very, very few people get death sentences, even for murder in which guilt is proven beyond any doubt. Your fantasized version of America does not comport with reality.
For every 9 people executed, one person on death row has been exonerated, but I’m sure it’s a really fair system.
Sadly, I think there is no question that we are being led “backwards to a more primitive and brutal society”.
We are already on the way. Whether we can stop it now I don’t know.
Chauvin was railroaded. You have an activist who, by his own admissions, clearly lied to get on the jury. Other jury members admit they voted to convict because they feared rioting if they didn’t. You had a black Congresswoman agitating for a guilty verdict and promising dire consequences if she didn’t get it. Chauvin did not receive a fair trial and it should have been moved to another jurisdiction. Floyd had a myriad of documented health issues, not the least of which was consuming his stash of fentanyl to avoid being busted with it. Opioids suppress respiratory function so it’s no surprise he could not breathe. Chauvin and America deserved to have jurors with enough spine to make a fair decision – regardless of the social outcome.
“Today, when people are angry enough to demand something — when they are willing to march and burn and disrupt and intimidate — their understanding of events becomes gospel, and a trial is just one more tool at their disposal”.
This conclusion is incorrect, because it highly depends on the mobs political color. Only if you are of purpose to managerial elites you will get a free pass.
And, the mob, in the pursuit of their version of justice, cannot be prosecuted for the destruction to life and property. A world turned upside down.
An eloquent and succinct commentary. Not mentioned was the award of 27 million dollars by Minnesota to Floyd’s family during the trial of Chauvin. I know nothing about the legal process in the USA but surely that act was a gross and contemptible interference in the pursuance of a fair trial for him, already severely prejudiced by the factsoutlined in the article.
This is well worth reading. Well done.
It’s always the rare among us that stand against the crowd.
Rare, but not unique, and there are more who merely need the motivation to act on their thoughts who can stem the tide and change the world view.
Justice must be blind, and the fight has to be for greater impartiality, not less.
I wish those with the courage to stand up the greatest of good fortune and fortitude. We’ll all need it.
I am Legion, for we are many – just not as visible as the sheep.
An excellent read and another brilliant example of why I subscribe to Unherd.
I believe the trial was designed to be over as quickly as possible and to nail the white cop to the post, knowing anything but, would’ve resulted in the LA riots MK11x Infinity.
The trial was a kangeroo court and had the full picture and key evidence been held under greater scrutiny then I suspect, the defence team would’ve been able to have robustly argued as to the exact cause of death.
The defence team should’ve had the opportunity to discuss Floyd’s past with impunity including his drug habit and the crime that plagued his life. The fact the President of the United States said he was guilty before they reached their verdict absolutely insured he didn’t receive a fair trial. The way identity politics is plaguing the U.S. it would take an extremley brave and commmitted person to stand up and defend a white policeman and the way he was unfairly treated in court during the current climate of hate and fear. It would end their career overnight.
To look at what O.J Simpson got away with becuase of the colour of his skin was appalling and to a degree, the cop, albeit not a particular nice one, was on the opposite end of the spectrum. Whether we like or not, what he did was/is standard practice in the U.S when detaining a suspect who is resisting arrest.
This is probably the clearest article on the Floyd death I have read. The actual evidence of the case begs for a verdict of not guilty , meaning not proved. The police body cam videos showed that Chauvin was not kneeling on Floyd’s neck , and the autopsy showed that Floyd did not die due to airflow restriction.With the drugs involved and Floyd’s medical history , there really is no proof that Chauvin killed him.The mob ruled in this case.
well said about the role of the media and mob justice. Poor Floyd most likely was obligated by his drug dealer friend to pass fake bills, then when the police came, be the bag man to hold the drugs and take the blame, and so swallowed the fentanyl, which caused his delerium, out of control behavior, and even a little bit of fentanyl often causes death, in his case, he had three times the amount that generally causes death. Chauvin did not look like he was intentionally trying to hurt Floyd, or restrict his breathing, he was trying to hold him in place until the ambulance arrived. Chauvin could not have known that Floyd had taken any fentanyl, all he saw was out of control behavior, and followed proper procedure, with patience, before getting Floyd on the ground. Society often puts police in the middle of problems that are almost impossible to solve, and then blame them when things go wrong. In short, Chauvin is a scapegoat for many of society’s ills.
There was no presumption of innocence, not a chance of reasonable doubt. Indeed, the verdict was manifestly pre-judged.
Evryone: Thanks for your comments out here.
I appreciate UnHerd, and I appreciate the UnHerd readers.
Where, if I may ask, is “out here”?
Chauncey is sitting on the lanai…
surely any half competent lawyer could get chauvin out on appeal. he could never get a fair trial once the online lynch mob were on his case so why did it go ahead?yes,he used excessive force but once again,the dead man was resisting arrest and was high on drugs.i m surprised that anyone wants to be a cop in america nowadays.the black people hate you,the liberal whites hate you so where does that leave you?one thing is for sure,chauvin didn t get a fair trial and at this moment shouldn t be in gaol.
Welcome to the postmodern legal system. Truth and law are matters of narrative.
Succinctly put.
We had it here with our top judges labelled ‘enemies of the people’ by media outlets that ought to have known better.
Judges ought to be far removed from the political context in which complex matters are investigated and resolved. Juries should be afforded the same protection – not for their good but for the collective good.
You may get the result you want from trial by media, or the mob, or Twitter, or whatever the platform du jour may be, but next time the result may go against you when a more powerful lobby gains the ascendancy. No use crying ‘foul’ then, is it, if your prior actions have undermined the basis on which you might expect to see reasoned judgement prevail?
This is hardly new. The criminal prosecution of OJ Simpson failed because the jury could see no crime in the killing of a white woman by a black man.
At least on the basis of the highest profile cases (Chauvin, O. J. Simpson) one could argue that the system is biased towards rather than against black people.
The article covers everything except one obvious, but largely missed, point. There’s no evidence that Chauvin was motivated by racial animus against George Floyd or that he ever displayed any racial prejudice. That’s probably why the prosecution never raised the matter.
Superb article, but it leaves out one crucial element that needs answering if the civilised values described herein are to be protected. It’s basically the observations about justice historically that are summed-up in Bob Dylan’s song, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, in which William Zanzinger, a white man, killed Hattie Carroll, a black woman, and was given a six month sentence for manslaughter.
This was not an isolated incident, it was something Dylan wrote a song about because it was just one example of a harsh fact of life for black Americans that persisted way further into modern life than it ever ought to have: justice was NOT blind, and the presumption of innocence was something liable to benefit white people a great deal more than black people, because that presumption must not only exist for everyone equally, it must also be overcome with a due process for establishing guilt that is equally applied for everyone, and that simply hasn’t always been the case.
In saying all this, I do not believe that this is the case now, and it it clearly has not been the case for many years at this stage. But there is a historic sense of injustice that informs attitudes and opinions now, and that is not easily overcome with appeals to high principle or reference to dry statistics that prove, no matter how persuasively, that everyone can trust the system equally now. Don’t get me wrong: I do not support those who reject the facts and traditions that support the view expressed in the article: I believe the writer is correct here. I am just saying that it’s going to take more to persuade people of the values in question, that’s all.
A tangential correction. The article says,
Not the case. See Prospective Case-Control Study of Cardiovascular Abnormalities 6 Months Following Mild COVID-19 in Healthcare Workers which found no damage among mild cases, whether symptomatic or not.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
Perhaps it’s idealistic or naive but I believe that there is a majority out there of reasonable, law-abiding people – of all colours – that would generally agree with the opinion that although it seems unacceptable that Floyd died during this altercation, there is also no evidence to conclude he was intentionally murdered.
The problem is that divide and conquer identity politics has effectively silenced those voices. People who once saw themselves as reasonable and decent have been summarily declared neither and are simply dismissed as racist if they’re white, or ‘Uncle Tom’ if they’re black. Since it’s highly unlikely they’ll ever have any interaction with the justice system outside of a traffic ticket the “good men” have either engaged in guilt-ridden self-flagellation or simply learned to keep shtum and disengage entirely.
So “good men” do nothing?
Well no wonder- haven’t you read the papers? There are no “good men”.
A lucid, cogent and very necessary analysis, Dr Weinstein. Thanks. It is odd that the US legal system allows prejudgement through the mass media – that is bound to make a fair trial much more difficult, you would think. However, in England, where the Common Law originated, the ‘presumption of innocence’ has been weakened in the last few years. Jurors are now no longer asked if they are sure ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ that the accused is guilty of the criminal offence of which they’ve been charged, but only if ‘they’re sure’. This was done on the basis that the ordinary juror would not understand the phrase ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ – completely spurious in my opinion. Having served on a criminal jury some years ago, my fellow jurors clearly thought – because they told me so – that ‘are you sure?’ implied a lesser standard of proof. It was all about getting more criminal convictions.
A lot of Brits look on the American ‘justice’ system with horror, not least because it seems so pleased with itself, as exampled by the number of television imports to which we are exposed. ‘Bought and paid for…’ seems to sum it up. The irony is not lost on us that, apparently, a wealthy black sportsman can get away with murder in the U.S.A. whereas a modestly resourced white policeman can’t escape being fitted up for murder when there’s reasonable doubt galore. Sick!
Would you react the same way if one of your favourite politicians got shot (no names)?
What a vile comment.
Wow imagine having a favourite politician? Bands, football teams, food sure but favourite politicians? Its like having a favourite cancer. “Least worst” is probably as good as politicians get. People who incite violence and murder deserve the same. People who want to murder others because of their skin colour, shape of their noses, choice of deity etc deserve the same x10. Many years ago the National Front decided to open a bookshop in our city, strangely sited in a hippy/squatter area. It was burned down within a week. I am sure the arsonists could’ve checked the building to see if the staff were there but apparently decided not to. As with the bod who shot the Oxford Uni racist i’d buy those arsonists a drink, or a “baggy” of their chosen poison whichi i suspect they’d prefer.
Further when i found out how many German soldiers my dad and his mates killed in 1944-5 i felt more, not less grateful for their efforts.
I was perplexed for a while. It seemed most probable to me that the police officer was guilty – if he was guilty of anything – of manslaughter. I could not see how he could be guilty of murder, at least as we understand the term in the UK.
Murder implies an intent to kill, and since the event was so widely witnessed there cannot possibly have been an intent to kill by the police officer. He would have to be the most flamboyant, unhinged psychopath to murder in cold blood in front of witnesses. And he must also have wanted to spend the rest of his life, or the best part of it, behind bars. So how could it have been murder?
But then I figured the US has a different system of category for this, and that the crime for which he was convicted was an equivalent to the one of manslaughter.
I take the point about the mob, though. My guess is, if the verdict was one of murder as we understand it, that fear of the mob ruled the court proceedings. I think the authorities dared not risk the explosion of civil unrest that would have resulted from an acquittal, or even conviction on a lesser charge.
For that reason I doubt the verdict will be overturned, and I doubt any re-trial will result in a different verdict. Fear of the mob will cause him to be left to rot.
I’m just glad it didn’t happen here, not after what happened after the shooting of a violent gangster a few years ago, when city after city went up in flames.
Minnesota law has a peculiar definition of “murder”, which includes act that elsewhere would be considered “manslaughter”.
The Liberal lynch mob mentality is very scary indeed. I used to consider the far Right more dangerous, but not any more. The Left’s maniacal fringe has moved straight and center.
What’s ironic is that black protesters seem to be pushing for mob justice- the same thing that resulted in many black lynchings back in the day.
To those who claim a society is systemic racist simply because “(Blacks) are killed more than whites in proportion to their percentages in the population”
There’s a simple and straightforward explanation for it: the blacks in America just commit more crimes, for various social economic reasons.
On the other hand, the Eastern-Asian are robbed by blacks and Latinos on a daily basis ij America and are most discriminated against in college admissions, yet they still have lowest crime rate, highest achievement in education and highest average median incomes. Doesn’t this explains something?
You have to admit the problem, rather than blaming someone else, before you can to solve it.
A lot of the victims of police shootings can be explained – people were armed (or thought to be), resisting arrest, the police is unavoidably nervous in a country where everybody carries weapons. But Floyd? I can share your worries about pressure on the justice system. But I cannot find a way to explain how it could be reasonable, or legal, for four policemen to kneel on the neck of a single, unarmed man for nine minutes while he is dying – whatever the exact causes of death turn out to be. Being conservative and all I would prefer to trust the police, so if someone has an explanation I’d love to hear it.
Weren’t 3 officers protecting the 4th from the surrounding crowd, while 1 knelt on Floyd’s neck? It’s not simply the crowd’s fault, but in my heart I believe that, had there been no onlookers, Floyd would probably be alive today; his arrest could’ve been easily effected by 4 unencumbered officers. I wasn’t there, I can’t know. I’m glad It wasn’t me having to arrest him.
I’ve read that the coroner found no bruising on Floyd’s neck supporting reasonable doubt about the degree of force used.
Perhaps there will be an appeal and more balanced consideration of the facts will be drawn out?
You are going by the “citizen” film content. Watch it all (the leaving the shop/getting in car videos etc. Look at ALL the evidence i.e. coroner’s report etc. Regularly use restraint technique with large drugged guy very known to police. The 9 minutes was because of the actual situation. No crowd, no extended time, possibly no death but the guy’s health was so poor and he was set to pop, the policeman couldn’t have known that..
Hmmm. So are you saying that this is the expected, OK result, and that the next similar situation people should expect, and accept, would have the same outcome? Or do you think something should be done to avoid that?
Not at all. Just saying that a long series of circumstances led to GF’s death, NOT the policeman kneeling on his neck (a technique that has been used long before AND since).
There is always a long series of circumstances no matter what you are looking at. Again: what do you think shoud be done differently to avoid a repeat? Or do you think that this is just one of those things – and we should learn to live with it?
One (1) kneeling policeman with the normal issue of two (2) knees, had one (1) knee on Floyds neck while attempted to summon help. The other one (1) knee was on the ground.
You or I have no way of knowing how much weight was on each knee but there’s no reason to assume that there was any more on his neck than was required to restrain him while the officer needed both hands free.
I was taught at the age of 11 in a judo / self defence class how to render someone unconscious with a neck compression inside 20 seconds without compression of the larynx or producing any bruising.
The technique involves compressing the carotid arteries and / or the jugular veins around the carotid sinus. This causes the vagus nerve to fire and to produce a reflex slowing of the heart and a massive peripheral vasodilatation so that the victim’s blood pressure drops through the floor.
The beauty of this technique is that it requires very little force – about 4 lbs to compress the jugular veins and about 11 lbs to effectively compress the carotid arteries. (A good technique for self deliverance as demonstrated by Dr. Shipman)
When I first saw the video footage of Mr Chauvin and his knee I thought “what perfect positioning to render this guy unconscious in double quick time”. Theoretically you can allow the victim to revive by releasing the pressure a bit and then re-applying it if they are unco-operative. Clearly a risky procedure in someone with a compromised cardio vascular system.
Mr. Floyd’s toxicology report is viewable online. Doesn’t look to me as though he was in overdose territory – 19 nanograms/mL of Methamphetamine and 11 nanograms/mL of Fentanyl in a big muscly bloke. Fentanyl is used as an adjunct to general anaesthesia or as a straight anaesthetic agent partly because it preserves cardiac stability.
At what point with this 20 second judo technique does your victim become unable to speak?
He, Floyd was a 6’ 4”, heavily built colossus, with a violent past and a criminal record to prove it.
Perhaps they should have asked him if he wanted a cup of tea*?
(* The panacea for all British crises.)
Go cry some more about Ashli Babbitt
An excellent counterpoint to the official narrative of the George Floyd affair is the article “Some things you may not know about the Derek Chauvin Trial” by Miles Mathis.
What interests me is how, when we look at old courtroom movies, we’re completely willing to believe our grandparents were willing to ignore evidence and reason to convict a black/Jewish/native American defendant because they were all such bigots, but of course, that never happens nowadays because OUR generation is so evolved and educated. Aren’t we?
Bret is correct, the trial was like “To Kill a Mocking Bird” gone wrong.
So many words, so little progress.
As long as each life is not valued, no life is. Examples abound, from startlingly obvious of China, Russia, Iran… to the subtle European Union to the virtue signalers, open Border/Sanctuary puppets in our congress..
No evidence was entered that there was any element of racial prejudice in the arrest of Mr Floyd, the arrest team were two withe officers, one black and one Asian. The whole scenario was based on racial prejudice against the white police officer to feed the BLM mantra
I fear Bret has an overly romantic impression of the Anglo-American legal system. Neither prosecutors, juries nor judges are, or ever been, impartial. Jury verdicts always reflect the sense of the community at any given moment.
The error in the Chauvin case was by the judge who did not allow a change of venue or declare a mis-trial when it appeared jurors names addresses were known and jurors likely to be targeted by those who wanted a conviction at all costs.
Nothing good ever comes when the state is either a coward or complicit when mob violence erupts.
Even if we accept Chauvin’s guilt, I have seen no evidence whatsoever to show that the motive was racial, circumstances suggest that it may well have been a mixture of the personal and a little disease that policemen can, at times be prone to. No, not racism, but Manicheanism, which can allow a copper to see any means he employs as justified by the ends of keeping the peace.
Good at least that it is still possible to publish such an article. Perhaps the people of the USA might still pull back from the brink of madness.
The Brooklyn Center City manager has been FIRED for maintaining that Kimberly Potter, the ex-officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright, should receive “due process.”
Not questioned. Not placed under review. Not even suspended. FIRED.
That due process cannot even be discussed any more, so much has already been lost.
It takes a certain moral courage to write a piece like this in these times. Clearly, Prof. Bret Weinstein has it. May his tribe grow stronger. A minor quibble: I didn’t quite understand the last paragraph. Clarity and the intended meaning elude me in that paragraph in an otherwise deeply perceptive piece of writing that one has come to associate with Prof. Bret Weinstein.
What’s the alternative to equality?
When we are talking about voting, there is no alternative. When we are talking about ideas and influence, the best alternative is an aristocracy of the good.
“Nothing is more unequal than equality itself.”
Pliny the Younger, a long time ago.
(*Letters of Pliny, Book IX, Letter 5.)
“What’s the alternative to equality?” Reality.
In this context: separation. Which in England is officially condoned already, and has been for decades now, with numerous public buildings named after Jamaican folk hero Marcus’Back to Africa’ Garvey.
There are also numerous separatist groups e.g. Nation of Islam who operate unhindered by law enforcement, whereas natives who dare to resist their own displacement suffer not only relentless Police harassment under terrorist legislation but even have bank accounts cancelled.
What is happening in England already meets UN definition of genocide. Even without further influx native births will be a minority of births by 2030; British schoolchildren an ethnic minority in British schools by 2035 – those figures are based on birth rates using Department of Education figures.
Interracial rape ratio in US is officially 30,000 to 1. The real figure is supposed to be much higher as this only represents reported crimes which it’s argued are a minority of the actual total.
Even so, the Uk figure is likely to be an order of magnitude greater owing to official complicity in mass rape of hundreds of thousands of native girls over decades. The facts are well documented and undisputed: Peter McLaughlin’s ‘Easy Meat’ is the definitive work: the title is a quote from former Home Secretary Jack Straw alluding to how native girls were regarded by a section of his constituents.
Thank you, Bret, for being so courageous in approaching these difficult topics. However, and with all due respect, I wonder if it isn’t too big of a leap to conclude that it is the ‘powerless’ who will suffer the most as result of the mishandling of this notorious case. I’m not even sure you explained this clearly, or maybe I just don’t get your point. The much, much bigger worry, at least for me, is that we are now immersed in a deeply toxic environment that incentivizes politics of resentment and retaliation, combined with a media establishment that does nothing but amplify stories that are far removed from the problems that affect the average citizen. For instance, enacting the anti-Asian hate crime bill is a priority but investigating the origins of Covid isn’t … How does this make any sense? And the more aggressive one side gets with, say BLM, CRT and DEI, the more aggressive the other side gets with anti-abortion laws. “stop the steal” conspiracy theories and personality cults. Where does this end? In the meantime, the exhausted majority in America, who just wants to get on with their lives, continues to be pushed into submission by the extreme views and policies of those who simply scream the loudest. Again, to me, this is really the big crisis we have on our hands.
admit it, the American masses are just stupid. They are blindly brainwashed by the ideology themselves are selling. They are so inflammable and shallow that the United States could easily entered into a de facto state of the cultural revolution, something that can only be born in China at the instigation of the dictator Mao.
Democracy is not a panacea, it can’t solve anything real problem except providing some feeling of legitimacy. Democracy does not spontaneously bring freedom, nor does it bring justice, nor reason.
On the contrary, a democratic society, ruled by a tyrannical majority, could be a society without freedom. A democracy made up of mostly ignorant people can offer less justice and freedom than a society ruled by a few intelligent dictators.
That’s why the American Founding Fathers had the institutional set-up of the separation of powers. It is also why justices are appointed for life, why juries need the protection of anonymity, and why elected representatives are not allowed to interfere with trials in any means. It is both a limitation on the state leviathan and a preventive design for mob politics.
Now we have witnessed the absurdness that everyone outspokenly called an accidental death, which apparently caused by multiple factors, a murder and even publicly threatened the justice system that If the outcome of the trial is not to their liking, they will unleash more self-inflicted destruction before the trial. Radical activists who self-claim to be “liberals” use the Marxist terminology “reactionary” openly and unashamedly to describe dogged intellectuals who refused bowing to left-wing populism and refuted their fallacious arguments.
If society in America, as a whole, is systematically discriminates against blacks rather than whites, then why no main-stream media, mega-companies and celebrities dare or willing to speak the following obvious facts: 1) Floyd refused to cooperate with the police, 2) he died from both drug overdose and police brutality (Keep in mind that drug use itself is punishable by extremely high sentences in most non-west countries and the U.S. is prevalent with guns and gang violence thanks to the Urban Hollowing), 3) the cop had no motive whatsoever to kill him. Not to mention the absurdity of blatantly committing a murder while being openly filmed by passersby.
How dare you brag in front of China that you are a country with an independent judiciary and rule of law?
“…we collectively leapt to a conclusion based on an incomplete review of evidence. From then on, we allowed ourselves to presume we knew the truth.”
This is very much the way of the modern lynch-mob, whether online, in person, or however it is done. There was certainly clear reason for doubt about this situation, and yet that doubt was not allowed to affect the decision reached. Having said this, in the UK we had the criminal damagers being let free by a jury when there was no doubt at all about their guilt, which they admitted, and they had been directed to find them guilty. The mob justice we now have is no justice at all.
It is not a surprise to anyone today that the “narrative” determines the outcome. When you creative a “truth” you are hoping to determine the outcome NOT reporting the facts. The world has put social media posts in the hands of billionaires and a relatively small vocal group of posters. The narrative is now controlled by them and the loudest voice wins.
Derek Chauvin was found guilty, and OJ Simpson was found innocent. I guess there is race-based bias in the American judicial system.
All it needed was for president Biden to display real leadership and declare that Mr Chauvin must be presumed innocent un till and unless found guilty through a fair trial. He could have highlighted the patent parallels between mobs that lynched black people and the protesters calling for Mr Chauvin to be found guilty.
Certainly the exculpatory evidence raised doubts in my mind. But to me they did not seem reasonable, especially in view of the specific definition of 2nd degree murder in the state of Minnesota which, as I understand it, requires the prosecution to prove that Mr Chauvin’s actions amounted to a substantial cause of Mr Floyd’s death.
Even though I think this way, I can see that justice could end up being more rightly done if he is ultimately cleared of the murder charge due to the all too real possibility of external influences on the jury during the period of the trial.
Great article.
This might just be the most important article in the world right now, if there can be said to be such a thing. That the Chauvin jury deliberated for about 7 hours says all we really need to know – they did not thoroughly review the evidence (the video footage alone amounted to hundreds of hours). I don’t even blame them – their children would have been threatened and their homes burned if they hadn’t convicted on all counts. As Weinstein correctly observes, it isn’t clear Chauvin could have been tried anywhere and had a fair trial. That should be a terrifying thought for us all.
After much prevarication – they had actually got Floyd, momentarily into the Squad vehicle, but for some unclear reason, he lunged forward and fell out of the vehicle through the opposite open door towards Chauvin, whence Chauvin pinned him to the ground. Although I don’t remember what happened there ever being discussed at trial or in the media. The video also showed him saying ‘I CAN’T BREATHE’, as he stands there stubbornly uncoperative with the request to get in the police car.
I think there’s a justified charge that leaving your knee on a neck for nine minutes was reckless endangerment. Although I have seen plenty of prone restraint arrests at London derby games that weren’t much differently executed than this.
The conviction I didn’t get was the murder one. Why when you knew you were being filmed from multiple angles, and being watched by numerous witnesseess, would you deliberately act so as to bring about a man’s death? How stupid that would be! Believing Chauvin killed with malice aforethought can only be sustained if you take to be gospel the idea that White Cops and their ‘community’ at large think that a black man can be killed with impunity.
Racism was never brought up in the trial, but the only way Chauvin would’ve done what he did with the culpable mens rea is if he arrogantly thought he could execute a black man with no blow-back. Unfortunately for him with regards to his chance of an aquittal many millions of people around the world angrily believe this contestable assumption to be the whole truth of the matter.
Kind of reminds me of an inverted O.J. Simpson trial.
Justice started to die when the officers involved in the Rodney King beating were found not guilty by a jury of their piers, and then tried again for the same offence by a federal court.
Sadly it was a Republican administration who legalized double jeopardy, and a wrong minded supreme court who upheld it.
Maybe its time for the end of the pier show! I agree re Rodney King and the double jeopardy problem, but reckon US justice system has always had a vengeful, biased and often corrupt way of doing the job. Maybe its because we were born out of a war and have been fighting pretty much non stop since: British, Indians, Confederacy, Indians again, Mexicans, Commies, Islamists etc etc.
The question of distinct federal and state jurisdictions over the same crimial action was raised a long time ago, and the Supreme Court ruled on it then.
The issue was that corrupt state authorities would acquit flagrantly guilty parties in sham trials. (And I think you know where and when.) Without federal intervention, this practice would go unchecked, leaving the victims helpless.
I commented on this earlier and it got removed because i went in with both feet, so here’s the same comment in more temporate language: Whilst truly blind justice is probably not achievable its still something we should aim for. Meanwhile fair outcomes often happen by chance or despite the inadequacies of judicial systems. Chauvin and Floyd chose to live their lives with violent disregard for the rights of others. It is therefore apposite that they had bad outcomes. I think Floyd probably got more than he deserved but maybe the pregnant woman he threatened with a gun in 2007 feels differently. People who carry out or call for violence and murder on racial or religious grounds need to remember what goes around comes around. Chauvin got his lesson a few weeks back and Sasha Johnson got her’s at the weekend.
As ever a courageous and intelligent analysis by Mr Weinstein…..
I havent any doubt Chauvin was properly convicted of manslaughter. Though that he was convicted on all 3 counts–3 out of 3– raises profound questions about his most serious conviction, that for murder. Dershowitz argues that it was improper to even charge him with murder considering the text of their murder statue.
While I fully agree that there are disturbing trends in America, Chauvin is not the best example. The police chief said kneeling on a neck was not an acceptable means of restraint. I believe the ER doc testified that he thought Floyd died of asphyxiation. Was the police chief lying? Was the doctor misrepresenting the facts? Maybe, but if I was on the jury I would probably have believed them.
The knee on the neck technigue was described in Minneapolis PD training material, though apparently not included in training. It was deleted after the Floyd incident. The MPD chief’s testimony was a strenuous effort to deny this. Like nearly all big-city chiefs, he is a political appointee with minimal front-line experience.
The medical examiner ruled that Floyd died of “positional asphyxiation” – that somehow being held on the ground prevented him from breathing, even though there was no evidence of any forcible constriction of the airway. The ME also stated that the above fatal-overdose level of fentanyl in Floyd’s blood did not cause Floyd’s death; though he admitted that he would normally rule death by overdose, when such a level was found.
Interesting that the author believes the jury is incompetent. Presumably because he disagrees with the verdict. But he did not sit through the evidence as the jury did. Perhaps a jury looking at the evidence in a court, came to the correct decision given the evidence presented to them.
I have sat on a jury. The jurors took it very seriously. I was impressed. May be a difference between English and American juries.
The jury managed to convict Chauvin of killing Floyd intentionally AND unintentionally. How is that even possible? And multiple members have spoken of intimidation. Our president pretty much demanded a specific verdict. A member of Congress was on the ground to whip up the mob, to the point that even the judge noticed that Maxine Waters’ presence and mouth created grounds for appeal. The jury worked inside those conditions.
I don’t think he claimed the jury was incompetent. It sounds like he’s actually indicating something much worse than that. If he is, I tend to agree with him.
Read the article.
Just because a person has pre-existing medical conditions does not preclude the death being caused by the violent actions of the assailant. Even if an attack results in the failure of an already weakened and damaged heart, the assailant is responsible for the death. There is no defence in “If he did not have a heart condition he would not have died as a result of the attack”.
This is by no means the first case of an unfair trial in America and/or the so called free world.
I know I’m late to the conversation here, but for what it’s worth:
If the police officer had pulled out his gun and shot George Floyd in the back, but the coroner said he may not have died of the gunshot wound, would you still claim reasonable doubt?
If George Floyd was an 80 year old man who died of a heart attack while his neck was pinned for 8 minutes, would you still claim reasonable doubt?
Pinning a healthy person’s neck with your leg will eventually kill them, and cops are trained to avoid it. Any officer who does it for over 8 minutes knows that death will eventually occur.
If the cop had stopped pinning his neck after 8 seconds instead of 8 minutes, there might be reasonable doubt.
In this case, while I can imagine George Floyd died sooner than a healthy person would have, I can’t believe for a second that anyone would survive that treatment for 8 minutes.
Jury trials are meant to prevent overreach by the government, not to let technicalities protect those with murderous intent.
Are there any legal scholars in the United States, apart from Alan Dershowitz, who have challenged the verdict in this case? I see a lot of group think and emoting. Paul Butler, professor of law at Georgetown, said: ““I didn’t react as a former prosecutor or law professor or legal analyst, I reacted as a Black man. And so, I cried. This doesn’t make up for Emmett Till or Breonna Taylor, but it does mean in our criminal legal system, one Black man’s life mattered when he was killed by a police officer. And in the United States of America, that counts as progress.”
This does not instill confidence.
I disagree witgh this piece for two reasons.
Firstly, almost without exception, only by being a member of the jury or studying a transcript can you be in a position to pass judgement on a verdict. The recounting (as here) of some of the arguments used by the defence is insufficient. There is no case made that the verdicts were perverse.
Secondly, justice is always imperfect, it operates in our world, not some platonic heaven. I think of the “suicide” of Jeffrey Epstein, the inhumane treatment of Ghislaine Maxwell, the Rodney King trial, the acquittal of O.J. Simpson. Really the United States is a society riven by extreme inequality and violence where this trial sets no special precedents.
On a lighter note, the principle of innocent unit proven guilty was not introduced in United States law by the founders. It was (I learn ) introduced through a Supreme Court decision of 1894, Coffin vs. U.S:
http://legalhistorysources.com/Canon%20Law/PresumptionInnocence.htm
It seems the principle emerged in Europe from the 12th century on. It is not especially of English history or Common Law. It just sort of grew bit by bit – kind of like the way the United States is presently falling apart.
Just to elaborate: The concept is about the assignment of the “burden of proof”. The standard of “innocent until proven guilty” imposes the burden of proof on the State. Meanwhile, starting with the Obama administration’s “Dear colleague” letter to the universities in 2011, the State has endeavored to shift the burden to the accused: you’re guilty until you prove your innocence. (This was all about the “Believe Women” business.) The Trump administration rolled back that “Dear colleague” business and advocated for traditional due process at the universities. But the Biden administration is again pressing for assigning the burden to defendants.
Not the strategic problem with assigning the burden of proof to defendants: the State can just make up crimes and claims and do that to harass political enemies or just anyone it doesn’t like. Imposing the burden of proof on the State induces the State to take more care in choosing which matters to pursue.
If Weinstein is correct, Chauvin’s persistence could well be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to induce a heart attack.
In any case, Chauvin will have recourse to many appeals. If it so evident that the jury should have found him innocent the appeal judges will no doubt clear him.
The implication that historically US juries have been impartial is simply laughable. It’s nonsense to suggest that the US is in danger of losing the possibility of fair trials. The whole system has long been a disgrace and is in need of a major overhaul.
This just in from Jeffrey St. Clair’s Friday column “Roaming Charges”:
+ 6: the number of days in 2021 when police haven’t killed anyone.
+ 937: the number of people killed by police since police killed George Floyd.
Tricky one if the Lloyd situation is placed within the historical context of white mobs indiscriminately hanging black people for nothing more than the colour of their skin and the crime of asserting their equal rights.
Similarly, the idealism of the Founding Fathers is undermined by the existence of the Mafia and other criminal dynasties who similarly manipulate in bad faith the American judicial system.
In this respect, the American idealism of a perfectly rational human automaton is not grounded in human interspecific interactions whereby the idealism of Cooperation is undermined by the realism of Competition.
As such, if this cultural ‘precedent’ sets off a cultural ‘trend’, then new rules, or a strict affirmation of the old rules, will be required. However, if the precedent turns out to be a cultural aberration that resolves more cultural issues than it creates, then in terms of our evolution (or our adaptation to an increased global human population size), then this aberration will have greater biological merit than the sanctity of liberal idealism.
I suspect this whole article reflects the author’s dislike of BLM rather than any qualms about Derek Chauvin having had a fair trial. Perhaps Brett underestimates the robustness of the jury system in the USA. Chauvin’s lawyers have filed an appeal on the basis that he didn’t have a fair trial, so let’s wait and see.
I have been listening to Drs. Bret Weinstein’s and Heather Heying for some months now. I have come to the conclusion that while much of what they have to say is important and well worth examining, in this case and a few others I have begun to believe that Dr. Weinstein is a bit of an egoist. I have also come to believe that race is not easy for him to deal with judging from his response to the Floyd case and much else. He makes the case too strongly by half. Chauvin is guilty of murder. He admits that. The pathologist found Floyd died of asphyxiation. Was that a politically correct decision or his best judgment that it resulted from Mr. Chauvin’s constriction of his air passage due to his knee on the suspect’s neck. No doubt Dr. Weinstein will appear as witness for the defendant at his appeal. Mr. Chauvin would have gotten away with it had no video been available. What he did is beyond the pale of acceptable police behavior in subduing any suspect, much less one accused of attempting to pass a phony twenty dollar bill. And as to one of the commenters comment that more whites are killed, more Native Americans are killed by police than blacks, but both are killed more than whites in proportion to their percentages in the population. As to the comment that justice is blind. Justice is never blind. It has always been corrupted and compromised by human emotion, avarice, and bigotry. Yet fairness is possible, just not in every government, and every time, not in every or indeed any justice system every time, and is not practiced by every judge, lawyer, or jury. It’s hit and miss in the system we have, and it so often persecutes the powerless and lets the powerful go free. All that Dr. Weinstein said with regard to the principles behind the law he cites is true. In this case, a very strong case can be made that some semblance of justice was done. That is all we can hope for, unfortunately.
Wow. Are you saying that the TV coverage, social media and the enormous amount of right wing, biased comment, predetermined a not guilty verdict? On all counts, no less? It is incredible that you sanctify the US Constitution and boast that its legal principles inform the world’s justice system. And then you say the purpose of all this – that decisions are made in the courtroom on the evidence in the presence of a judge is not good enough? You are a proponent of judicial anarchy. Why not just let Trump decide it all from a gold bath in Florida?
Its a pity Chauvin didn’t get a proper trial. I’d be very keen to find out why he knealt on Floyd’s neck so long, and why the other cops didn’t grab a limb each and chuck Floyd into the car. I suspect because like BLM etc violent racism played a part. Also something fishy about the drug business here: The man was broke, hence passing forged bills, and was a junky and a thief. Why on earth is he using methedrine? Speed reduces the effects of junk and makes withdrawal even worse. Even a point is $20-30 on US streets and a gram of quality ice is $100 +. Not a rational use of funds if you’ve got an opiate habit.
Maybe he was broke BECAUSE of his drug habit.
So he got the speed from a charity dealer? like a food bank for drugs…?
You seem to have very little understanding of how the drug culture works. People like Floyd often have large amounts of cash on hand because they find ways of getting it, either through outright theft, by grifting, or by drug dealing or drug running themselves, or by working under the table. He probably got paid in cash for his security work. He might have been a part-time pimp so also got money from women, a lot of male drug users and dealers do that. They use the fact that they can physically protect women on the street to their own advantage, and form exploitative relationships with them. Finally, a lot of them also get various forms of “disability” welfare. Floyd might have been getting some of that too, owing to his heart condition and other health issues. It doesn’t take much effort to work the system, if you know how.
One reason they delayed everything was because the Police were worried about the mob threatening so just kept in place focusing on the mob instead of continuing the restraint and placing in a vehicle of Floyd. The angry mob was a large contributing factor, ironically.
From what i saw in the video the “mob” were vocal bystanders and probably no risk to the 4 or 5 heavily armed and belligerant cops.
The point is they knew that these bystanders were filming them and that getting Floyd back into the vehicle would have required more physical force than just keeping him restrained on the ground.
Either way, Floyd probably would have ended up dead because of the drugs in his system. Even the doctor who was brought in by the prosecution admitted, under cross examination, that if she had come across Floyd dead in his apartment, in exactly the same condition, she would have concluded that drugs had killed him.
I am sure the mob and a certain normative antagonism towards the police had an influence there. I can imagine an element of defiance of that in Chauvin’s nonchalant emotionless demeanour to demonstrate he was in control and they were not going to pressure him into letting up until he was good and ready.
Floyd had been in the car, but started to get extremely agitated and thrash around, saying he couldn’t breathe. He was a big man so they couldn’t control him in the patrol vehicle in that state, so they let him out.
Many people have questioned why the police needed to restrain him at all, when he was already handcuffed. Well, the reason was – as anyone who has worked in policing would know – handcuffs don’t prevent a suspect from running away, especially when they’re in a state of drug-induced delirium. They can mow bystanders down with their bodies, or run into traffic, getting themselves killed and/or causing fatal accidents. And if any of that happened after an arrest, the police would be liable. Once they have a suspect in custody, they have to keep him under control.
And the video showed that Chauvin did not kneel on Floyd’s neck continually for all that time. And that he (obviously) wasn’t cutting off Floyd’s airways while he was (the now-banned knee on neck hold isn’t designed to do that; it’s a form of what’s called pain compliance), as Floyd was able to keep talking during that time. A person can’t talk while they’re asphyxiating: physical impossibility.
Thank you, Bret, for this very thorough, well-balanced analysis.
Derek’s action imposed–whether intentionally or not– a death sentence on George–a death sentence rendered without due process, without benefit of a jury trial to determine whether or not George was guilty of passing a fake $20 bill.
This is the police-inflicted rush to judgement that poor black folks have been trying, for so very long, to bring to our comfortable suburban honky attention.
George never received his trial-by-jury.
Derek’s job as an officer was to apprehend a suspect and deliver him to the system of due process and trial-by-jury. Derek’s job was not to impose an immediate death sentence.
Blacks in the US have been trying for 150 years to make us all aware of this problem. It wasn’t until this present event that they had such a obvious picture of that systemic abuse.
Likewise, protest mobs that inflict injury and destruction ought to be lawfully summoned, individually, to stand trial by jury to determine what punishment and/or recompense is required of them.
Without rule of law we will fall into anarchy. The enforcement of that law begins with the power of the arresting officer to do the right thing, instead of imposing a sentence of his own.
for any sane person living in any sane country, his death was an pure accident, driven by both fatal drug overdose and brutal law enforcement. No one attempted to murder him, let alone doing it when being filmed by passersby in public. Your arguments stand on a false proposition.
I do not disagree with the author that there were other possible circumstances that caused Floyd’s death, nor that the case was prejudged. But his high-minded and distant analysis misses several important factors. The US is a police state and poor and disadvantaged people have had enough. Floyd was presumed guilty that day by the state, he was treated in an inhuman manner. Do you recall how many witnesses expressed fear of the police, one who called his mom and said stay upstairs the police are here, another who saw a police car as he was walking to the store and thought it might be best to avoid them, the old fellow who kept saying to Floyd, “You can’t win”, all who feared to intervene and so risk their very lives. Chauvin became a symbol, by his own actions, which were inhuman, callous and scornful of Floyd. The verdict he suffered was also a symbol of disgust, anger and helplessness by those whom the system oppresses.
But let’s look at USA justice. Is it the beacon of fairness and hope for all the world as Americans like the world to believe? No, it is not.
Look no further than Julian Assange, Kim Dotcom, Meng Wanzhou, Chelsea Manning, all those convicted of minor drug use, the three strike law victims, the people awaiting execution. USA justice is barbaric and a disgrace, it breads crime, exonerates certain criminals, especially the powerful and incarcerates normal people beyond any other nation.
Both Floyd and Chauvin are unappealing individuals, both creations of an unfair brutal society and system of justice. Floyd is now a posterboy for the oppressed, Chauvin is a posterboy for the brutality which is policing in the USA, he was hoist with his own petard, the “justice” system of which he was a part.
Isn’t that just a roundabout way of defending a verdict which looks to be an objective error?
If the American system of policing is to be put on trial, then put it on trial, but don’t turn the trial of one man into the trial of an entire system.
Either Chauvin is guilty or he is not. If not, then regardless of how unappealing he may be as an individual, regardless of how corrupt the system he works for is, his conviction is a miscarriage of justice which nobody ought to wish be allowed to stand.
Nobody should want the mob to rule (and it is a mob if a number of people together use fear of what they might do to force through an unjust conviction). No divisions will be healed via that route. A sense of injustice is not the preserve of one group, it can be felt by anyone, and adopted as a route to influence by any group. It will lead to civil war, with nobody interested in what is right and wrong, only in what can be won by any means.
The principal and founding idea of justice is that it is better that some of the guilty go free than an innocent be punished. Right and wrong have nothing to do with it. My point is that this is not what USA ‘justice’ is based on, whatever your ideals may be. The jails are full of people whose crime is poverty, ignorance, oppression. The system goes after people like Assange and cares not about the law, or justice. You are all upset that Chauvin was found guilty, when there was ample reason to ‘doubt’. While Floyd was treated like an animal and died as a result, does not seem to cross your radar. That was the justice system in action. Chauvin was part of that system; brutal, indifferent, violent and oppressive, not compassionate and not just. Chauvin and his gang members were judge and jury and inflicted punishment and they did it all legitimately under the guise of justice. None of you see that the police are thugs and terrorists. No. not all, but the system of ‘justice’ gives them that prerogative. Nothing to see here, just doing our job. I say terrorists, because they rule by terror and because it is such a button pushing, popular word. Read this article about Chauvin in 2013. In this incident the boys mother was too afraid of the police to go to help her son. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/minneapolis-derek-chauvin-history-of-complaints-george-floyd.
This is considered good policing in your justice system, you also have police in schools, schools which are designed to look a lot like prisons???The US justice system has incarceration, deemed by others to reach the level of torture, You have the death penalty, And yes, innocent people are put to death, but that need not worry you even though the death penalty is the antithesis of first principal, stated above.
Your clamouring for “justice” for Chauvin, how he was railroaded, lynched, etc. is hollow sounding if you do not consider the injustice done every day by thugs like Chauvin, judges, prosecutors, the state dept; done to the weak, the oppressed and the defenceless. Your cries would ring true if you fought for justice for all those unjustly charged and punished.
The USA ‘justice’ system stinks.
In reality Chavin is a victim of the injustice he and the cruel system he is part of has inflicted on others for decades.
I repeat, he was hoist with his own petard.
Did the Chauvin knee cause Floyd’s death?
‘Several experienced officers, including the police chief himself, have testified that Floyd should not have been kept pinned to the pavement for close to 9 1/2 minutes by prosecutors’ reckoning as the Black man lay face-down, his hands cuffed behind his back.’
Answer: Yes
The MPD chief, like most big-city chiefs, is a political appointee with limited front-line experience. His testimony at the trial was dictated by his superiors (though I doubt that he needed much prompting to say what they wanted).
As to other witnesses:
Under cross-examination, Lt. Mercil admitted that Chauvin did not apply a “chokehold” to Floyd, that Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s upper back and shoulder blades, not his neck, that he had personally encountered arrestees who faked medical emergencies to avoid arrest, and that there could be circumstances in which an arrestee has to be restrained for as long as 10 minutes, such as being surrounded by an angry crowd shouting threats of violence.
Under cross-examination, Officer Mackenzie acknowledged that the presence of the angry crowd probably interfered with the arresting officers’ provision of care to Floyd, and that the threats and noise of the crowd would be a reason for the paramedics to load Floyd in the ambulance and move three blocks away before providing care. Defense attorney Nelson actually called Officer Mackenzie as a defense witness later in the trial, to testify about MPD policy regarding arrestees in “excited delirium”.
LAPD Sergeant Stiger, the prosecution’s use-of-force expert, had never testified as an expert before. Under cross-examination, he admitted that under MPD policy, Chauvin could have tased Floyd, that he had personally encountered arrestees who feigned illness, that a handcuffed arrestee could still be a risk to officers, that it could be appropriate to restrain a medically distressed arrestee until EMS arrived (and that he himself had done so), that putting a knee across the shoulder blades was appropriate in certain circumstances, and that he had personally encountered arrestees who passed out, came to, and resumed fighting.
Let’s forget about this tiresome left vs right saga and talk objectively for a moment: Can you really come up with any circumstantial evidence that makes the murder of George Floyd not murder?
Yeah, that’s why Chauvin will rot in jail. And should you ever be assaulted by a similar psychopath (dressed as policeman, to the endless embarrassment of the USA) who lays his knee on your neck, you’ll probably agree that it is a good thing that this is not sanctioned as “justifiable”.
The rest is just political polarization.
You are not talking objectively.
Surely for it to be murder there has to be an intent to kill. That must be the same in America as it is in Britain.
The police officer obviously did not intend to kill Floyd.
He may have intended to hurt him physically, or to humiliate him, or ‘teach him a lesson’ or something similar, but that does not make his death murder.
If our collective futures are not to end in fire storms of irrational, fratricidal hatred, we must find a way to cleave to Reason. We must seek to be governed by reason, which means allowing our selves, as individuals, to be governed by reason. If we cannot manage that we will become the playthings of every evil known to us, and the future will be very bleak indeed.
OJ is innocent of the murder of Nicole…
George Floyd died because he tried to pass a phony $20 bill in a convenient store. The penalty for which is not *death* … nothing that happened to him as a result of his crime was in any way justified.
I inadvertently passed a phony (realistic looking movie money) $20 at a gas station in Elkhart IN. I am white, well mannered, and non-threatening. The clerk pointed out the movie markings, gave me the bill back, and let pay with a different $20 bill.
I keep that $20 bill on me at all times as an object lesson in white privilege.
Were you high on fentanyl at the time? And if the police had been called, would you have resisted arrest?
The police were never called … get the point, chucklehead?
https://www.google.com/search?q=hypothetically+meaning&rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB863GB863&oq=hypothetical&aqs=chrome.3.69i57j46i433j0i433l3j0l5.9043j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
…
No need for your *imaginary* scenarios…
White guy passes a bad $20 ~ no police officers are called to the scene…
But allowing for your puerile pathetic pointless query ~ regardless, the penalty for passing a bad $20 (even if you tack on drug abuse, and throw in resisting arrest) is NOT *death*.
So were you high on fentanyl and would you have resisted arrest?
Yawn, I wish I could be annoyed that you are deliberately “playing dumb” … but having read some of your other posts, I realize that you are not playing.
I’m sure you’re lovely in person.
“I keep that $20 bill on me at all times as an object lesson in white privilege” In NYC you can stab someone wile robbing a cyclist, and be back on the streets with a promise to appear much latter, and no Cash Bail needed, and then a few days later stab someone else (after beating severally a couple sleeping homeless. (in the Daily Mail), and not even need ‘White Privilege’.
I am glad for you you have a talisman to your ‘White Privilege’ to carry, and you can always also carry it as a reminder of your ‘White Guilt’. Dual purpose, they need to make a coin with those two on each side, and we all can carry one to remind us how fortunate, yet horrible, we are.
*wile*, *latter*, *severally*
How fortunate that you have horrible English skills…
“as an object lesson in white privilege”.
I am totally sick to death of this racist nonsense, deliberately it seems, designed to destroy trust and good will between people.
If it had “movie money” on it they probably assumed you were passing it by mistake or too stupid to be taken seriously.
I wouldn’t read too much into it, though fair to say Floyd does look like a badass regardless of his skin colour; people make those sorts of judgements all the time, there’s nothing sinister about it.
I guarantee a low-IQ citizen such as yourself would take this $20 bill without question.
Why are you so rude to everyone who disagrees with you? Are you always angry, all the time?
….
I am not the least bit angry…
Are you so judgemental all the time?
Are you so wrong all the time?
OJ is deemed to be innocent of the murder of Nicole…
White privilege? What nonsense.
White, Ms Ashli Babbitt was murdered*by a black so-called policeman who faces no charges and has been given total anonymity, yet the video evidence against him his unequivocal.
Mr Floyds’s relatives and lawyer have been given $27million of public money, yes $27 million. Surely there are more deserving cases for that ‘windfall’, even in that paragon of virtue some call Minneapolis?
(* Capitol killing, Jan 2021.)
And, as if the prove the point of the article, they were given this money before the trial was held. A presumption of guilt rather than innocence
Precisely, an absolute travesty of justice, that only serves to reinforce what Georges Clemenceau said about he US a century ago.
Come on. Some actions are dangerous and carry a high risk of being killed by law enforcement. Resisting arrest while armed is one. Storming the Capitol and trying to break into the debating chamber is surely another.
Come on Rasmus, much as you may regret it, the US is supposed to have matured and moved on from the ‘Wild West’. Frankly it is embarrassing that ‘you’ haven’t
You should watch the video evidence.
She is in a room packed with stroppy protesters and at least three heavily armed* policemen, looking remarkably like the former Waffen-SS.
Unarmed, she attempts to climb through a broken glass door into the corridor beyond.
From the side of the corridor two black hands, clasping an semi automatic pistol appear. The killer takes careful aim over several seconds and then shoots her at point blank range. Sadly we do not have an audio tape of what, if anything he was saying at the time. However, given US society as it is, it would have been something like “Make by day bit*h”, would it not.**
For a moment one of the aforementioned “Waffen-SS policemen looks alarmed and seems ready to engage the ‘killer’, then belatedly realises, that despite appearances ‘ he is one of us’.
All in all a terrible day for the Republic, and performed in that Holy of Holies, the Capitol Building.
Fortunately, rather like say the Fall of Paris in 1940, future generations will be able to ‘enjoy’ it on film until the end of time.
(* Fully automatic Assault Rifles, Helmets, Flak Jackets etc.)
(**Apologies to Clint Eastwood and “Make my day punk”, circa 1973.)
The policeman hasn’t been named how do you know he is black?
I used my eyes.
Would the name have given any indication in this day & age?
Why hasn’t he been named. Hardly in the spirit of the Great Republic is it? More like the old USSR or worse, if that is possible.
What a stupid little story.
liar
The clerk at the store called Mr Floyd to make good on the bogus $20 as he would have been on the hook for it as he accepted it as payment. The store manager tried as well but without success. Neither enjoys the white privilege you do so they were compelled to call the cops.
Which was perfectly fine. Indeed Mr.Floyd’s misdemeanor warranted police intervention. No one would debate that.
The issue was that the policeman in question was a racist psychopath who ended up murdering Floyd for the whole planet to see. The world watches the baffling bend-over-backwards logical gymnastics of those that still try to deny the murder, and America’s chance of getting away with the excuse that murderous racism is present in just a few bad apples among its citizenry has been blown away for anyone with access to forums like this.