Derek Chauvin found guilty on all three counts. More to come.
Update:
A few thoughts after thinking about this overnight.
- My major criticism of the Defense is not going with a bench trial. In Minneapolis it simply was impossible to get a jury that was not going to be a lockstep vote to convict.
- My major criticism of the Judge is that he did not grant a change of venue: see number one.
- I think Chauvin will fare poorly in his state appeals, but will probably get a new trial after he seeks habeus corpus relief in the Federal system after the exhaustion of his state appeals.
- Blue cities and States are telling cops that it is open season on them. Cops will respond by retiring, quitting and doing the bare minimum of paper shuffling policing to get by. Blue cities are about to see levels of crime that will dwarf the worst of the sixties and the seventies.
- The Left will believe this is a signal for them to double down on demands to abolish the police and defund the police. The police will soon be completely neutered in blue cities. Expect a return to lynch law as gangs in neighborhoods become the only source of armed power in crime ridden areas.
- Antifa and Black Lives Matter will not be deterred by this from engaging in major riots around the country with the return of warm weather.
- American trust in the rule of law is becoming a sad joke and that is dangerous for the entire nation going forward.
Watch: a jury has found former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin guilty of all three charges he faced in connection with the murder of George Floyd pic.twitter.com/FCvehbOkdG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 20, 2021
Language advisory:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1384669340859994116
There will be massive job opportunities to become a Minneapolis police officer now. An opportunity no one in their right mind would take advantage of.
There will be plenty of people to take police jobs. They will be people eager to enforce things like COVID mandates, where they only have to confront decent non-violent citizens. But they will ignore actual dangerous crime, especially from minorities.
Would you entrust your safety to such “cops”, Rudolph? I wouldn’t.
Perhaps Officer Chauvin has a chance with an appeal— but I suspect that there are no end of criminals in the MN prison population who’d love to end his life there, and not a few MN politicians who’d like to see that happen before any appeal can be heard.
It seems to me that if the defense for the other three cops can’t get a change in venue, they will be going up the same river Chauvin is.
Absolutely correct Greg.
“and not a few MN politicians who’d like to see that happen before any appeal can be heard.”
Starting the meme now: Chauvin didn’t kill himself.
The truth is that this was a trivial police call, dealing with a dying junkie who was having a major meltdown, and trying to keep him under control until the ambulance arrives. This tells every cop in Blue America that at any moment they could find themselves facing a lynch mob disguised as a jury and heading to prison. Only a lunatic would want to remain a cop in Blue America under these circumstances.
Only a lunatic would want to remain a cop in Blue America under these circumstances.
That’s why my son who was training to become a police officer quit. He said the crazy he heard, the tension between what the officers training him said they should do in the real world, and what they were being compelled to do and teach because of the times we live in, was too much. He said his life was worth more than someone’s social activism. That’s why he chose not to go into the military as well. Instead he decided to put his envious abilities as a salesman into good order, and seems content.
Many supposed conservatives are disgusting in their zeal to “suck up” to the left and prove their racial neutrality by praising the guilty verdict ( i e. Shaun Hannity) . As in every case, the overriding question should be did the man receive a fair trial. The answer is a resounding No. It should never be forgotten that underpinning our whole Justice System is the right to a fair trial. The more guilty a person may be , the more important this concept becomes. Otherwise, we descend into nothing more than a dressed up lynch mob. A year of riots, looting, troops having to surround the Courthouse, public officials demanding a particular result, and more made the conviction of Chauvin a lynching, regardless of his guilt. A sad day for our “Justice System “ regardless of his guilt. We truly resemble more and more the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution.
I wouldn’t trust the type of cops we have coming either. They are going to be stooges for a government regime that actively hates us.
A conservative blind spot is to assume that people in certain positions will always have the same character, ex. that cops will always be brave and honorable. At some times they were, but they are less and less so now. Makes no sense to support them blindly, but you can support them on a case by case basis.
Even the conservative MSM is going for character assassination- calling Chauvin a “bullying loner” who “once pulled a gun on kids for playing with a toy”. Slinging mud. There is no way, guilty or not guilty, that this man had a fair trial.
A whole new meaning to Chauvinistic now – the triumph of malevolent black racism.
There will be plenty of police officers left – those who will happily arrest Christians for Sunday worship in defiance of COVID-19 quarantine orders, those who will drag away priests and Protestant ministers for preaching on Romans 1:18-32, those who will incarcerate bakers for not preparing sodomite wedding cakes, those who will throw into jail protesters at abortuaries, etc. But if you’re gangster thug hooligan of a skin color different than white, then you have free reign to do whatsoever you wish. At that time those of us with families to protect will have no other choice than to exercise our 2nd Amendment right, and thus the cold Civil War will become hot. May it never be, Lord Jesus. However, the lesson of Mattathias and his sons in 1st Maccabees chapter 2 sadly applies.
There will be plenty of police officers left
Never underestimate the ability of the Left to eat its own.
I was very disappointed that Franklin Graham supported the verdict. Ehat on earth is wrong with him?! He was one of the few evangelical leaders I had any respect for. Not anymore!
I was very disappointed that Franklin Graham supported the verdict. Ehat on earth is wrong with him?! He was one of the few evangelical leaders I had any respect for. Not anymore!
I’m afraid the evangelical world is going through a decadent period of its own.
This very well could be a death spiral inspired by our clueless elites: fewer police responding, more violence, more criminals seeking notoriety, more posturing by race baiting politicians, more media hype, more riots, more juries afraid for their town or lives, rinse and repeat.
In Columbus police shot a teenager who had a knife and was in the process of attempting to stab another teen. Of course because the officer was white and the teen was black this has been called racist (the girl who was about to get stabbed was also black, but it’s been clear for ages that no one cares about black on black crime). There have been people attacking the police who have explicitly said that they should have just stood back and let the stabbing occur. It’s “the community working out its own difficulties”, “teenagers being teenagers”, etc.
If these communities don’t want the police to get involved as they tear themselves apart, I’m started to think that we should take them up on the offer. As long as we can wall them off from the rest of us.
“If these communities don’t want the police to get involved as they tear themselves apart, I’m started to think that we should take them up on the offer. As long as we can wall them off from the rest of us.” RH
Segregation.
A return to whites only this or black only that…this atmosphere of [ we choose who will be policed and by whom, ] is a strange return to segregation of sorts.
Three black children, eldest wasn’t more than 16, tried to enter our van at an intersection in my old neighborhood in Grand Rapids Michigan. We were early for a meeting and I decided to show my bride the parish that I attended while in parochial school, 1968-71.
How things have changed.
At the stop sign these punks tried opening our doors while we were in the van. My right foot has never hit the gas pedal as hard as it did that afternoon.
My wife’s comment; “Sweet neighborhood honey.”
Being in the Northern woods of Michigan for many years has placed me in a bubble. All it took was a trip down memory lane to burst that bubble. In 1968 12 year old’s were attempting to steal Swinn Stingrays..not occupied minivans.
My “whiteness” was brilliant that day. The color. Not the decision making process.
“My major criticism of the Defense is going with a bench trial. In Minneapolis it simply was impossible to get a jury that was not going to be a lockstep vote to convict.“
Did you mean “not” going with a bench trial? I think the reason Nelson chose to roll the dice with a jury might have been because he didn’t trust Judge Cahill to be any more unbiased than the jury. I got the sense Nelson didn’t think much of Cahill. I can’t say I blame him. I mean a change of venue should have a given. But Cahill said no. Am I wrong in being suspicious about that?
Thanks for correcting my mistake Greg. It is a dice roll when going with a a Judge as a bench trial. Other than the big issue of a venue switch, which courts around the court are increasingly reluctant to grant, I thought the Judge was quite fair in his rulings to the defense. I think after the Defense saw the composition of the jury panel was the time to go with a bench trial. The one disadvantage of going with a bench is that it might give less opportunity for error to be found on appeal.
Normal reluctance notwithstanding, but in this case isn’t a change in venue a no-brainer?
Although I understand the inconvenience long term sequestration would cause, the judge’s refusal there doesn’t strike me as all that fair to the defense either in this case.
A good article on change of venue and the Supreme Court:
https://scholarship.law.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1105&context=faculty_lawrevie
Change of venue used to not be rare; now it is as rare as the proverbial hen’s tooth. I agree that this case cried out for it. The pre jury verdict comments by the politicians may ultimately be what gets Chauvin a new trial with change of venue.
The pre jury verdict comments by the politicians may ultimately be what gets Chauvin a new trial with change of venue.
The properties of the jury pool and the use of peremptory challenges to exclude every facially neutral juror (including every white male over 35) should do it in a sane world. Judges meddle a great deal. They don’t protect us very much.