Guilty!
Marvin the Martian
Shipmate
in Hell
Enjoy your time in prison, Chauvin you murdering bastard.
Comments
Betcha cops will riot in multiple cities tonight.
Probably particularly ones in prison for killing civilians. Particularly a black civilian.
Of course he'll appeal. But he's going to jail tonight, he'll stay there till he's sentenced, and then he's going to prison. An appeal will take a long time and is unlikely to be successful, and he'll be in prison the whole time.
This is historic. Which is one of the sad things about it, but it's true. It's historic that a white police officer was convicted of murdering a Black man while on duty. This is the first time it's ever happened in Minnesota.
But an appellate court cannot substitute its view of the evidence for the jury’s. An appellate court can only determine whether a legal error occurred that was prejudicial—that is, but for that legal error, there is a reasonable possibility he would have been acquitted of at least one charge.
He certainly has a right to appeal, but from what I’ve seen, I don’t think he should hold out lots of hope for that appeal to be successful.
But it is without question something to be glad of.
There will now be appeals . . .
The bigger picture, however, isn't full of Derek Chauvins. It's full of cops shooting people (more often than not black ones) when they "thought they had a gun" or "he didn't follow commands", or had some other kind of sort-of-defensible "I feared for my life" moment. And the challenge is to change what cops do so those situations don't happen so often.
My big worry going forward is that apologists for police brutality will cite this verdict as evidence that the system worked, no larger reforms are needed, and since the judicial system is apparently willing to punish cops who abuse their power that therefore every other case of black Americans killed by police must have been justified and necessary and not at all criminal or an abuse of their authority because if it was they surely would have been convicted. "Not as bad as Derek Chauvin" will become a mitigating defense in cases of police violence.
The challenge is to change an entire system that leads to that.
I just happened to be up to an episode of the podcast You're Wrong About that's titled "Murder" (and no, it's not specifically about police committing murder but that gets a mention). It starts with the fact that the rate of solving murders has gone down, but then gets into the entire culture of how police forces interact with the communities they're supposed to be policing.
The nub of it is: Police provide a service to rich communities and go to war with poor ones, and then wonder why poor communities are so unhelpful to them.
So many of these stories involve police stopping people for reasons that look completely trivial compared to the end result of a death. The stories we hear about are the tip of an iceberg of police constantly stopping people for trivial reasons.
Crap! Of course you are right. This is truly one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations. Systemic racism sucks big time.
"There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
It has been suggested that police be taken out of the business of performing traffic stops for non-moving violations. Expired tags or an air freshener hanging from your rear-view mirror are not an immediate hazard to others.
He didn't sacrifice his life. He was murdered.
Is this convicted person a monster or a bastard? I expect, as Hannah Arendt noted in a different context (ww2 war criminals), that he is probably pretty ordinary. Thankfully the prior president isn't able to pardon him.
Trump wouldn’t be able to pardon him even if he was still president. This is a state criminal conviction. The president can only pardon those convicted of federal crimes.
Yes it was. Floyd did not want to die.
Chauvin was arrogant to think he would get away with it.
Life will still be on pause for the next few days - we're so happy here, but there's still a protest in Brooklyn Center, and there was a Black girl in Ohio murdered right before the conviction was read. We're still worried about a police and white supremacist backlash.
The MPD positioned itself during the trial as a righteous organization that suffered one rouge member. It's bullshit. People here will be taking the next step to defund the police, and it's going to be an uphill battle.
I don't know that bastard is a strong enough term to describe the piece of shit that Chauvin is. I'm afraid that MPD officer is.
__________________
For those not familiar with the term:
* Dingleberry: a small piece of feces that clings to rectal hair.
Fingers crossed for you all in Minnesota, @amybo. All the pictures of the state troopers and National Guard make them look like an occupying army.
What are the implications of defunding the police? No Police Force ?
Ah yes, the proverbial "bad apple". For some reason those who blame "bad apples" never go on to finish that proverb.
Yes, huge relief and morning news headlines leading with this verdict in South Africa. The same uncertainties and fears of a white supremacist backlash in the US as expressed by @amybo. Hoping this conviction will be a catalyst for genuine accountability and real systemic change.
That's not what is usually meant, no. It means funding other services (mental health, social work, education etc.) by cutting back on police. There's pretty good evidence that with regard to crime an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Despite agreeing that the slogan was initially misleading, I think after a year there's no excuse really for not knowing that it means diverting a significant proportion of their funding into the sorts of services which are needed for and to prevent the many of the situations police go into with negative outcomes. Social services, drug and alcohol intervention, mental health services.
Thanks for that.
I apologise for not knowing what everyone else appears to know
Unfortunately he's certain to appeal and, potentially could get a a complete retrial due to Improper Influence due to Representative Maxine Waters' comments
Judge Cahill said: "I give you that congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this trial being overturned."
The judge said he wished "elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law". "Their failure to do so is abhorrent," he added.
However, Judge Cahill dismissed Mr Nelson's motion for a mistrial, saying Ms Waters' "opinion really doesn't matter a whole lot".
I don’t think that strategy can be used here in Australia , though my family lawyer tells me that a person can be charged with murder, found not guilty of that , but convicted of manslaughter without having to go to a separate trial.
But a great sense of relief in the verdict.
"It is expedient that one man die for the people".
The difficulty is that those involved in this kind of case come to serve as actors playing out a drama in the national psyche. They become canvases onto which our social suffering, fears, and aspirations are painted.
Incidental, individual elements that are perhaps crucial to how events actually went down, perhaps such as those @Penny S mentions, get swept away in the metanarrative, important though that metanarrative may be.
At the end of the day this depersonalises both perpetrator and victim.
The verdict is deserved and necessary, but Chauvin's individual responsibility and person should not be confused with all the symbolism he is being made to embody.
The MPD need urgent assessment of each of their officers to root out the jackboot types who much prefer using their position and uniform as a free pass to brutalise people. Giving quick-tempered bullies a uniform, a weapon and protection (usually) of the law doesn't help keep the peace. Anyone who prefers to use violence (only when they have the upper hand!) to peaceful methods doesn't belong in law enforcement.
Maybe working in an abbatoir would suit these misfits better.
Pretty much yes. The US system frequently involves throwing a whole raft of charges rather than picking just one. The options for employing that approach in Australia are far more limited.
It's perhaps worth mentioning that none of the charges against Chauvin were based on seeking to prove he had an intent to kill. They were all based on recklessness or gross negligence (intent to kill is not necessary for murder, sufficient reckless disregard for life will also qualify).
So not guilty of murder can still be found guilty of manslaughter, or not guilty of robbery can still be found guilty of assault. In England and Wales it is known as an alternative verdict.
The range of intents which can be proven in NSW include "reckless indifference to human life", and the facts reported has occurred here a jury would certainly be able to reach such a finding. That intent, and variations on it, appear in legislation in other jurisdictions.
Unfortunately Mrs. Waters is not the first elected official to feel that it is perfectly acceptable to incite violence, regardless of how just the cause. As we all too well remember.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/us/ohio-columbus-police-shooting-15-year-old/index.html
A cop arrives on the scene, in his patrol car, to find several high school age girls having some kind of fight in a residential area. He gets out of his car, walks over to the girls saying "Hey, what's going on?", sees one girl with a knife attempting to slash / stab at another girl, and shoots and kills the girl with the knife.
So on one side of the ledger, the cop has prevented injury to the victim of the knife attack. On the other side, the girl with the knife is dead. Should the cop have stood back and allowed the victim girl to be stabbed, assuming that the stabbing would probably not be fatal, and that with a bit more time and some blood on the ground, the attacker might have calmed down?
The video shows a chaotic fight scene - one girl is on the floor being kicked in the head by a young man in a grey hoodie; the girl who was shot is swinging at a girl in hot pink with a knife, and there are a couple of other young people looking on.
A great deal of fault lies in habitually arming police officers.
Arming traffic cops? Why?
If the police officer in question had no gun they’d have to find a way to calm the situation and save the threatened girl.
Tazer? Restraint? They are well trained in other methods, not just shooting.
It’s not just a question of what an appeal court will do but also what the jury will decide. If the prosecution has a proper basis to proceed on both more serious and less serious charges for the same action then it may make sense to do so as it will never be possible to predict exactly how the evidence will come out at trial - or what the jury will make of it.
In Canadian law you don’t have to charge a less serious charge separately if it’s considered lesser and included for the more serious charge. So in Canada manslaughter is a lesser and included offence for murder - it’s basically the result if the prosecution proves that the accused unlawfully killed the victim but fails to prove intent to kill. Minnesota obviously carves up these offences differently because one of the offences that Chauvin was convicted of was unintentional murder, which is an oxymoron in Canadian law (and I suspect elsewhere as well, but I don’t know offhand).
That said, the grounds of appeal seem to be alleging that the trial was rendered unfair because of publicity and as a matter of logic this could potentially affect the convictions on all three counts.
It's a fair question. I think US cops would be rather resistant to the idea that they should make traffic stops without being armed. You know that US culture heavily buys in to the power of the gun - lots of people carry a gun for self-defence, or have a gun to defend their home. So I'd be pretty sure that a typical cop would feel safer making a traffic stop if they had a gun.
In the last week or so, I've seen news reports of a "traffic cop" pursuing and killing an armed robber, and of another "traffic cop" being killed after having made a routine stop of someone who turned out to be a drug dealer with an AR-15.
It might be true that cops would be safer in traffic stops if they didn't have weapons, and were known to not have weapons, but I think it would be quite difficult to convince the cops of that, just like it's difficult to convince ordinary Americans who carry guns for self-defence that their gun might not actually be increasing their personal safety,
I don't think a single cop by themselves can wade in to a street fight like that. Partly, this is an issue of the cop being armed. An armed cop cannot lose control of their weapon, which means that a single cop can't grapple with someone in that kind of environment.
And partly, it's an issue of officer safety: a single cop without backup wading in to the middle of a street fight? What are the chances that the warring parties forget their differences and gang up on the cop?
Accepting the clarity that one obtains from "Monday Morning Quarterbacking", it would seem that a Taser would have been a good option here, if the cop had one. Did the cop have one? My understanding is that all cops carry guns, but not all police forces routinely issue tasers to all their cops.
But I think these are absolutely the right questions to ask.
This is not a case where there will be charges against the cop. It's clear to me that the cop did a defensible thing. But it is a thing that resulted in a young black woman being killed, and we should absolutely be asking questions about what other choices the cop could have made, and whether they would have worked out better.