Embrace the possibilities
- Thread starter Crazyhole
- Start date
No, that’s wrong. The question to the jurors was: Were Chauvin’s actions the primary cause of Floyd’s death beyond a reasonable doubt.
Anything to do with is absolutely not the standard. If it were, we’d jail a bunch of surgeons. After all, they cut people open to operate on them and then the patient dies. They had something to do with the death but most of the time the patient dies of other causes.
There was enough evidence presented that Floyd may have died of a drug overdose, may have died of a cardiac event, may have died from the strain of the restraint. That adds up to reasonable doubt on causation. To add to that, the fact that the prosecution couldn’t choose between strangulation via Chauvin’s knee and positional asphyxia means that even they weren’t sure enough what Chauvin’s action that caused Floyd’s was to present one consistent theory of the crime. But they sold the jury apparently. Or something did.
No, but if she had a heart attack and fell in front of your car then there would be some doubt as to the cause of death.
What's really pretty ridiculous is that "contributing factors" is so broadly defined. Officer Thao never touched Floyd, but is being charged as well. I'd say that if he is convicted, so should the crowd, the store clerk, officer Chang, Hill, and Hall.
What if you backed over her corpse repeatedly for 9 minutes and then failed to perform CPR on her?
What if she jumped in front of the car after snorting a line of coke and downed a colt-45?
Because there is now a felony predicate, they all are likely to get Murder 2 convictions.
I have a major issue with the murder 2 conviction. In their close, the prosecution states this: "And for murder in the second degree, that the defendant at the time of causing George Floyd's death was committing or attempting to commit assault under the laws of Minnesota. And assault, to show the defendant assaulted George Floyd, that he intentionally applied unlawful force to Mr. Floyd without Mr. Floyd's consent resulting in bodily harm. The state has to show that. The state did show that, the assault, and that the defendant inflicted substantial bodily harm on George Floyd, and that this act took place on or about May 25, 2020 in Hennepin County."
This was a misrepresentation of what the state presented (an outright lie if you'd like). They presented no testimony that portrayed the knee restraint as being unlawful at all. Every expert that they asked said that it was "untrained." Untrained does not mean unlawful. The move was in the procedure book on May 25th, 2020, so it is more than reasonable that Chauvin would understand it to be legal. The police policy and procedure books are vetted by lawyers and are not full of illegal actions. I can't remember anyone classifying the knee restraint as an assault and I can't remember the prosecution pounding that point with the witnesses. They just kept calling it "untrained."
So, all of a sudden, Schleicher starts calling it unlawful in his close and says that the state proved it. This is not supposed to happen. If it was characterized as untrained in the testimony, it should be characterized as untrained in the close. It's a slick slight of hand and it's dirty as hell.
Similar tactics that should've caused a mistrial is Blackwell telling the jury during the rebuttal that the defense case was just a collection of stories and fiction. While this may fly in a civil trial (Blackwell is a civil attorney), you are not supposed to be allowed to say that the defense is lying in a criminal trial. Nelson objected multiple times, all sustained, but it was said so much that it is impossible to unring that bell. Should've been a mistrial right there.
There are a number of other places the state did things that should've easily caused a mistrial. They would cause a mistrial because they prejudices the jury and/or are patently unfair to the defense. So, you can claim that "justice has been served" and from a mob justice sentiment that may be true. But the due process rights of the accused were violated in this trial and the justice system failed here like it has failed so many black Americans before. The state played dirty and with a stacked deck and got their result.
Given your track record, I'm going to have to take this assertion with a grain of salt.
I heard legal experts last night and again this morning that said the defense will certainly appeal -- as most defenses do -- but that the prosecution ran a very clean case so the prospects of the defense being granted an appeal are slim and none.
If find it more than a little weird that sk8 is sticking with his dirty cop like a dog to a bone. The very notion that the prosecution "played dirty" and "stacked the deck" in a case where the damn murder scene was videotaped is a bit much, even for sk8.
uh.....because a jury of his peers found Chauvin guilty of third degree murder based on the evidence presented at the trial.
...AND they also found him guilty of second degree murder.
...AND they also found him guilty of manslaughter.
The charges were designed to give a jury the opportunity to assess the level of responsibility they felt Chauvin should assume for George Floyd's death. The fact they found the defendant guilty of all three charges makes it abundantly clear what they thought of Chauvin's actions that day.
So it makes sense to you that Chauvin was guilty of both voluntary and involuntary murder? I'd say that a rational person would pick one and not the other.
You can be guilty of manslaughter 2 and murder 2, or manslaughter 2 and murder 3, but not all of them.
Strange. I don't recall the judge sending the jury back to their chamber to pick one.
Thats exactly what sk8 was talking about. The jury wasn't given clear, defining instructions. The fact that they didn't come back out and ask for clarification is proof that they were going to rule in one direction no matter what.
You act like a guilty on all counts verdict is unusual and speaks to some error on the jury's part. In fact, it's not unusual and basically says the jury found the defendant guilty of "all of the above." Given they are three separate degrees of guilt, it stands to reason that if they found him guilty of second degree murder, he would also be guilty of the two lesser crimes.
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