Andrew Branca will be covering the Kim Potter manslaughter trial at Legal Insurrection
I had to think a moment before I remembered what that case is about. It’s the tragic situation in which a veteran police officer named Kim Potter thought she was reaching for her taser (yelling the warning “Taser, taser, taser!”) and instead reached for her gun and shot and killed Duante Wright, who was resisting arrest, instead of tasing him as she had intended. Potter is white and Wright was black.
I wrote three previous posts about the case, this, this, and this.
Attorney Andrew Branca writes especially insightful and thorough reports, and he will be covering the case day by day, as he did in the Rittenhouse case. You can find his initial post here, and today’s livestream post – regarding jury selection – is here.
Usually Branca has at least two posts on the trial every day. The first is a livestream and the second is an analysis.
Fleeing arrest by means of a motor vehicle is a felony in Minnesota. Minnesota’s “felony murder” statute seems to say that anyone who causes the intentional or unintentional death of someone while committing a felony is guilty of felony murder.
Is it possible that Mr. Wright is guilty of felony murder, even though he’s the victim?
I don’t know what she is guilty of but she has to be found guilty of something. With great power comes great responsibility and that is a mistake that just cannot be allowed to go unpunished. Just my opinion.
Griffin:
“What she’s guilty of” is actually extremely important. For example, is she guilty of a crime, or of a civil offense that amounts to non-criminal negligence? The trial is for a criminal offense, manslaughter. I don’t know what penalty it would carry in her case.
neo,
Oh, I know, I wasn’t being flip I haven’t followed what she is being charged with that closely my point is just that a police officer can’t be allowed to make that ‘mistake’ without some punishment.
Griffin:
That’s okay. I didn’t think you were being flip.
Griffin,
The only thing Officer Porter is guilty of is being a human being.
Duante Wright bears sole responsibility for his death.
That Officer Porter yelled out “taser, taser, taser!” three times demonstrates it to be an accident. One precipitated by Duante Wright’s resisting of arrest.
The world is better off with one less criminal who resists arrest and who, in doing so places civilization’s guardians at even greater risk.
Any society that demands accident free performance in deadly situations from its police forces is a society that will find itself bereft of police forces worth having.
Geoffrey,
I would be fine with involuntary manslaughter or something but I just think that is way too big a mistake to make.
And I don’t call that an accident it was a mistake made in a stressful situation that Wright bears most of the blame for but also something that police officers receive training for and if she can’t react correctly then she should be punished in some way.
Manslaughter conviction please: even if the criminal was a waste of oxygen. If I accidentally reverse over my neighbour, that’s what I get. Cops are citizens, not some special breed or class apart.
The judge in that trial has already been harassed by a George Floyd creature who claims to be a relative. He gained entrance to the judge’s secure apartment building and posted pictures of himself at the judge’s door.
I watched the original footage. Wright was under control, about to be cuffed. Then things went nuts. He was able to go from about to be cuffed to being in the car to drive away. Major cop fail. He had the freaking keys or they were still in the ignition. ?????
Can you imagine getting into a car, ready to drive away, while somebody is hauling on your arms or neck?
Me neither.
And Jacob Blake was not under control. Fought off seven cops,.
I wonder if the officer immediately resigning in any way hurts her case? Interesting that Mr. Branca said she’d probably go free had she intended to shoot him.
Griffin,
IMO, a conviction of involuntary manslaughter is wildly inappropriate and an example of cruel and unusual punishment.
It’s a mistake to punish people for honest mistakes. Especially so with Police officers. As the precedent it establishes will in time result in a much less professional force because it holds human beings to an impossible to meet standard that must be met in every circumstance. They will know that, in today’s climate, if it even appears that they’ve failed to meet perfection they face their lives being destroyed. What sane person would risk it?
When on duty, it will place a huge level of added stress to every minute of every day. Mark my words, implement that standard and you’ll end up with a force composed of sociopaths because only those utterly disconnected from emotion will be able to handle that level of pressure.
Zaphod:
Actually, if you “accidentally reverse” as a private citizen, you might indeed get off or you might be guilty of something, but it’s not a foregone conclusion that you’d be guilty of manslaughter.
And actually, police officers do function under different laws and rules in certain cirxumstances. That is probably true in most civilized countries, if the officer is acting in his or her role as an officer.
Also, in Minnesota a person has to have a special permit to open carry. Obviously, police officers do so all the time, and have tasers as a rule as well that are carried openly. The history of how the law deals with situations such as Kim Potter’s, in which an officer mistakes a gun for a taser, is that they are not usually charged criminally.
This one is a tough case. I understand Griffin, and this is an unforgivable mistake. Zaphod is wrong about police not being special, explaining that to zaphod is useless because he lacks either experience or empathy, and I suspect both. However I come here to read neo, because she’s a thoughtful person. A solution is wrongful death civil suit rather than criminal charges. Potter lost her job, and that needed to happen.
I do think Rusty has an interesting point about the law. That same statute was used against Chauvin, I think excessively and wrongly.
“an unforgivable mistake”?
If society holds the police to a standard that declares that making an honest mistake, that results in the death of a criminal resisting arrest… will result in the imprisonment and destruction of that cop’s life… the unintended consequence will result in a much less safe society.
A case of the cure being far worse than the disease.
Nor is a wrongful death civil suit a cure either. Since it sends the message to cops that an honest mistake carries financial ruin.
Cops often must make split second decisions, as was the case here, in which their very lives are at stake and this standard declares that if they ever make an honest mistake, their career and even life is over. What sane person would take that risk for an increasingly thankless job? Again, only sociopaths will take it.