Chauvin loses on appeal
I think there’s no question that Derek Chauvin should have won his appeal, but I would have been utterly shocked if he had. That’s the state of the legal system, especially in a place like Minnesota. The case will probably be further appealed, perhaps all the way to SCOTUS. But I have a strong feeling that the Supreme Court would refuse to hear it, because it’s so explosive a case and the consequences of ruling in his favor are so potentially catastrophic. So why not punt?
Powerline has two articles about the appeal, and I suggest you read them. I’m in agreement with the views of John Hinderaker, expressed here, as well what Scott Johnson writes here.
From Johnson:
Today the Court of Appeals affirmed Chauvin’s conviction. The opinion of the court is posted online here. On the issue of venue that court held that the trial judge “does not abuse [his] discretion by denying” change of venue if he takes “mitigating steps and verifies that the jurors can set aside their impressions or opinions and deliver a fair and impartial verdict.”
The court’s discussion of the issue at pages 14-20 has an air of unreality that is entirely in keeping with the trial itself. “[W]ith a few very limited exceptions, the [pretrial} publicity was generally factual in nature.” The court drops footnote 4 in that sentence referring to “statements by the MPD police chief and the commissioner of public safety describing the incident as a ‘murder’ before he was convicted. However,” the court adds, “because the district court took numerous mitigating steps and verified that the jurors could decide the case fairly and impartially, we conclude that this properly eliminated any potential prejudice among the seated jurors.” The court does not note that Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison did so as well, or that the pervasive atmosphere in the Twin Cities was one of mob justice. As I say, unreal.
If this atmosphere wasn’t prejudicial, then nothing is.
From Hinderaker:
The Court of Appeals was no more willing to risk inciting riots than the Chauvin jurors were….
On the day of his death, George Floyd ingested three times a lethal dose of fentanyl. He showed the classic symptoms of a fentanyl overdose–most notably, difficulty breathing, which he complained of for 20 minutes before anyone knelt on him. Two months before the fatal Memorial Day incident, the same thing happened: Floyd overdosed on fentanyl. He was rushed to the hospital, where he spent three days and the doctors saved his life. The only thing that was different on Memorial Day, in my opinion, was that the ambulance didn’t arrive in time. I think the police officers were bystanders at at one of many thousands of fentanyl overdose deaths.
In my view, the medical testimony at the trial showed little evidence of death by suffocation. There was no significant physical evidence that Floyd suffocated; the prosecution’s testimony was mainly directed to showing that it is possible to suffocate without leaving evidence in the autopsy.
Hinderaker also mentions that the city of Minneapolis “announced that it would pay $8.9 million to two alleged victims of police brutality by Derek Chauvin.” In the two cases, each of which occurred years before the Floyd case, Chauvin used the “knee on neck or shoulder” technique that he used for Floyd – and which at the time was an acknowledged and recommended technique in Minneapolis for subduing certain categories of suspects.
One of those suspects got $1.375 million from the city for a case that originated in 2017 when “she allegedly tried to strangle her mother with an extension cord.” Chauvin was called to the scene, subduing her with the hold. The person in the other case, John Pope, received $7.5 million. Hinderaker adds this:
“Pope’s lawsuit said his mother was drunk when she called the police because she was upset that he and his 16-year-old sister left their cellphone chargers plugged in, leading to a physical confrontation. It alleged Chauvin struck Pope in the head with a large metal flashlight at least four times. It says he then put Pope in a chokehold before pinning him to the floor and putting his knee on Pope’s neck.”
No hint as to why Chauvin “struck Pope in the head with a large metal flashlight,” etc., other than a vague reference to a “physical confrontation.”
I think I can clear that up. In a post I wrote in 2021, I mentioned the Pope case, although not by name. I’m pretty sure it’s the same case:
A knee on the neck of a 14-year-old for 17 minutes. What a vicious, racist brute – right? Lost is the fact that the Minneapolis police listed that hold in its recommended ways to subdue resistant offenders (it has since been removed from the manual, post-Floyd). Lost also are these other facts, which I would consider salient [emphasis mine]:
“Prosecutors detail the Sept. 4, 2017, arrest in the court filing, saying Chauvin and another officer named Wells responded to a domestic assault call in which the mom said she’d been assaulted by her son and daughter.
After 33 seconds of talking to the boy, telling him he was being arrested, both officers grabbed him and when he resisted, Chauvin hit him with a flashlight twice, at which point the boy called out for his mom and said they were hurting him, prosecutors say.
“Chauvin then asked the other officer to Taser the boy, but he didn’t have one, so Chauvin applied a neck restraint that caused the boy to lose consciousness and go to the ground, prosecutors said. The officers handcuffed him behind his back while Chauvin knelt on him for about 17 minutes until after paramedics arrived and they put him in an ambulance.
“During the time Chauvin’s knee was on his back, the boy – whose ear was bleeding – repeatedly told officers he couldn’t breathe and asked to be placed on his back, which didn’t happen, prosecutors said.”
Another thing that didn’t happen was that being in that position for 17 minutes didn’t seem to physically harm the 14-year-old at all, much less kill him.
Prosecutors tried to introduce this evidence in Chauvin’s trial, but the judge refused. This is of interest also:
Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson responded to the state’s motion [to introduce video of the incident with the 14-year-old], arguing the video shouldn’t be admissible because the force Chauvin used in the 2017 arrest was in line with the department’s policy on dealing with uncooperative suspects, adding that Chauvin’s use of force was “reported to supervisors and cleared.”
“The state makes a point of noting that the suspect was rolled onto his stomach and cuffed while Mr. Chauvin used his knee and body weight to pin the suspect to the floor. As noted previously, this is how MPD officers are trained to handcuff individuals — particularly suspects who are resisting,” Nelson wrote, adding that there is “no marked similarity” between this incident and the Floyd incident.
The Minneapolis Police Department has since changed its use of force policy. In June, after Floyd’s death, it banned chokeholds and neck restraints.
In that 2021 post, I also used quote from a document Chauvin’s attorney filed in Chauvin’s original trial, that mentioned he had used neck restraints on eight occasions during his tenure as a police officer in Minneapolis. The document added that these:
…takedown and restraint techniques [were] taught and approved by the MPD. [Chauvin’s] “modus operandi” was simply that of a Minneapolis Police officer performing his duties and reacting as the circumstances, in which he was present and where the State’s attorneys were not, dictated. The State’s attempt to characterize these incidents as evidence of some kind of ill intent or common scheme of violence that is somehow unique to Chauvin is specious, at best. Finally, in each of the above incidents, the State attempts to characterize Mr. Chauvin’s use of force as “unreasonable” or “beyond what was needed.” Mr. Chauvin reported his use of force to the department in each of the above incidents,and in every single one, it was determined by a supervisor that Mr. Chauvin’s use of force was reasonable in the circumstances and authorized by law and MPD Policy. In essence, to the extent that his use of force was at all questioned — of which the State has offered no evidence — Mr. Chauvin was “acquitted” by MPD supervisors of applying force in a manner that was either unreasonable or unauthorized.
Now, even though the two people awarded the money in compensation were apparently uninjured, and both had allegedly tried to kill their parents, the city of Minneapolis – which no longer recommends these techniques – is compensating them with big awards. But Chauvin is the scapegoat for the whole sorry mess.
There but for the Grace of God go I. And people wonder why police are fleeing leftist jurisdictions? They absolutely should be. It is horrifying, and it almost certainly will not be the last.
There is no way I will travel to the worst of these blue cities.
I would be surprised if the Supreme Court punts the case. Roberts will want to, of course, but he is a coward (or blackmailed into someone’s back pocket). But the Court has to retain some public support and screwing Chauvin will be seen by many tens of millions as the injustice it is.
If the half the country is going to hate you either way, at least be honest and do the right thing.
More criminality from the Minnesota judiciary.
Neo: you (and the Power Line lawyers) make excellent points, using, you know, facts that tend to exculpate Chauvin, both in the Floyd case and in the two recent payouts. But then you note “Chauvin is the scapegoat for the whole sorry mess.”
Well, yes; yes, he is. Because that’s what scapegoats do. (Or, rather, because that locution suggests that Chauvin somehow sought the job of being a scapegoat; that he is actively “doing” the role of scapegoat, let’s say “that’s what is done to scapegoats.”)
We are a long way from logic, fact, and even the faintest pretense of impartiality or fairness. We are deep into a religious frenzy of rage, revenge and blame-shifting.
Happy Easter.
Owen. Yes.
I have mentioned to a couple of people that the jurors may have thought their names would be leaked. Absolute certainty that such things never happen and in particular in this case could never happen and so the jurors were not afraid of it.
It’s kind of an odd situation. Am I to feel insulted that I’m thought to be so stupid as to believe it? Or is it not insulting since they don’t care if I believe it; they[re pretty sure I don’t believe it; they’re telling me what they will say over and over and over as if they believe it and it doesn’t matter what anybody says; they’re not getting drawn into a discussion of a failure of jurisprudence.
“The case will probably be further appealed, perhaps all the way to SCOTUS. But I have a strong feeling that the Supreme Court would refuse to hear it, because it’s so explosive a case and the consequences of ruling in his favor are so potentially catastrophic. So why not punt?” neo
Punting would be an abdication of the Court’s duty. More importantly, it would act as prima facie evidence that the rule of law has been replaced at the very highest level and in every branch with political might… makes right. The Court would in effect be signing the Constitution’s death certificate.
Arguably, that’s already happened but this would be the final nail in the Constitution’s casket. Increasingly, this is not the country that the founders envisioned.
he should have shot point blank range, it worked for michael byrd didn’t it, this was part of the insurgency that susan rosenberg engineered over many years,
This should never have seen the inside of a court room. Autopsy report should have put the whole thing to rest.
But we absolutely have to have a leftist racial reckoning, or so we’re supposed to believe. So…get ready for more blood to be shed and more once-great American cities to collapse into black anarchy.
I have a friend who used to be on the LAPD. He told me that anyone who saw the full Rodney King video would have seen a) a large man (6’4″, 235 lbs.) with an athletic build, b) who was uncooperative and belligerent, c) combative, and d) showing signs of PCP intoxication. It took 4 officers using physical force to subdue him.
The Floyd case is not quite the same: a) an overweight, out of shape, middle aged suspect, b) who was suffering acute fentanyl intoxication, c) already had cardiovascular disease, and d) was going to expire no matter what Chauvin did or did not do.
Chavin was screwed either way. If he believes a low life who claims he can’t breath (haven’t heard that one before), and lets up on him, at the very least he gets a rip for violating department policy and maybe a suspension. If he does what he did, the howling mob was going to have his scalp no matter what. Is it any wonder police departments are having trouble meeting their recruitment goals?
Long ago, when I was a surgery resident, a guy came in with a gunshot wound that was the result of a police mistake. He was a 35 year old black man who had no police record, a regular job and a 10 year old son he was raising alone. The story is in my memoir book. He had gone to a party and a woman there had asked him to take her home. They came out of the house where the party was and encountered police who were following her because they were looking for her boyfriend who was not at the party. My patient, Johnny, cooperated and had his hands on his car top when someone (not clear who) said, “Look out he’s got a gun.” Johny turned slightly to see what was going on and the cop next to him shot him.
The bullet went through several organs but I was able to fix that, It entered his spinal canal and injured his “cauda equina” which is the bundle of spinal nerves that fill the spinal canal below the end of the spinal cord. He was not paraplegic but he had patchy loss in his legs and bladder. After a year he could walk with a crutch but could not go back to work although his boss kept his job open for a year.
I continued to care for him for a number of years, even after I finished the residency and moved to Orange County. He would call with some problem and I would give him gas money to come down. I sent him to other doctors but his final state was not satisfactory.
About four years later, his suit against the LAPD finally came to trial. He was a innocent guy permanently crippled by a police mistake. No one had even apologized. The jury ruled against him and he got no compensation. A few years later, Rodney King who had no serious injury, got millions. I had lost track of Johnny by then.
Mike K:
Justice is certainly not always served by the legal system. It sure doesn’t sound like it was served in that case.
justice must be denied in order to continue the slow motion demolition of cities, that is indistinguishable from what an enemy army would do in our country,
“On the day of his death, George Floyd ingested three times a lethal dose of fentanyl. He showed the classic symptoms of a fentanyl overdose–most notably, difficulty breathing, which he complained of for 20 minutes before anyone knelt on him.”
Not only that but his lungs were full of fluid and he was drowning. I told you months ago he died of a drug overdose. Fentanyl is really toxic and there isn’t a lot difference between a therapeutic dose and a toxic dose. It certainly looks like we have a corrupt and dishonest judiciary.
There were events such as the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution, to name just three, that took place because Autocrats went too far.
We are in such a situation. There are differences, of course. Our Autocrats are a diffuse group, rather than an identifiable individual, or class. Another significant difference is that the population is also diffuse, and defused. Finally, the Autocrats have so much more firepower at their disposal; and are willing to use it–apparently.
Still, one wonders how long this near total breakdown in societal norms in general, and the justice system in particular, can continue with no backlash.
There must be a breaking point. The question is, “which way will it break?”.
I think the outcome of Johnny Green’s trial represented public opinion about police at the time, about 1975. The Rodney King verdict was years later, in 1991. Plus the video tape had a huge effect as did the Clinton Administration which ignored the double jeopardy rule to get a political result.
I sent money to Stacey Koon’s family all through his imprisonment. The real Villain was Melanie Singer who stopped King for speeding then could not control him and was about to shoot him when the LAPD arrived. They saved his life by taking him down without serious injury. Singer testified against the LAPD cops in both trials then retired on “stress disability.”
The ubiquitous phone video has turned out to be a double-edged sword. Cheap, easy recording of events – mostly family and pleasurable moments are a boon. On the other hand, the videos of violent encounters don’t always tell the real story. When such video is broadcast widely on the MSM, it can have unintended consequences because, like the Floyd video, it creates an emotional reaction that cannot be overcome by the facts of the incident.
Derek Chauvin was barely involved in the whole incident. It was only when the four cops decided they needed an ambulance and needed to secure Floyd until the ambulance arrived, that he was much involved. That he was doing his job and following the book but was thrown under the bus by his own department is really outrageous. Potential recruits and serving police officers saw that and were rightfully dismayed.
The Floyd riots have set in motion a snowball of crime that is gaining in size and strength. The Biden administration is doing nothing to slow it down. To what ends, we’re not sure. Eventually martial law will have to be declared to restore peace in many cities. Is that their game or do they just want to see things burn and society collapse?
Poor Derek Chauvin.
Or what of Darren Wilson, his life ruined due to the fallout of Fergusson.
And this latest from LA from our Soros Prosecutor. No wonder that looting happened in Compton.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jack-dunphy/2023/04/15/los-angeles-da-george-gascon-menace-to-society-n1687460
There were events such as the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution, to name just three, that took place because Autocrats went too far.
==
Disagree. From 1860 to 1917, public policy in Russia was salutary in important respects. The most salient was that Russia’s peasantry received fee simple tenure to the land they’d worked. The residue of feudal obligations was eliminated by 1906. You had the colonization of Siberia after 1890 and the extension of modern land tenures there. The development of elected conciliar bodies on the local level in the 1860s and then on the national level in 1905. You also had an abusive police state in Russia, but it was inconsequential compared to what came after. The war was a severe stressor, but the political culture in Russia had developed bizarre elements quite on its own.
==
As for Bourbon France, recall that there were all of seven prisoners in the Bastille when it was stormed. There might have been someone in there on a lettre de cachet for political reasons, but the majority were accused of common crimes and one was confined for insanity. Louis XVI was a ditherer, not a tyrant. The French state was a stew of corruption, incompetence, and confusion and the public finances were a complete mess.
==
As for the situation in Colonial America, you had a completely different agrarian system in the colonies than in the mother country and the colonies were populated with those who’d put all their chips on the table to travel across the sea and farm in some place they’d never seen (or, on occasion, ply a trade as an artisan or merchant). Most of them were religious dissenters as well. Leaving aside slaves, you had about 15 million people under the authority of the British crown in 1776. The American colonial population might not have been as antagonistic as the population of Ireland, but they owned their own land, fought the aboriginals with their own weapons, and had their own institutions of government.
It would have been better off if Derek Chauvin had called in sick that day.
Oldflyer
Louis XVI was not an evil opressor and eventually France would have most likely evolved into a Consitutional Monarchy such as Great Britain. As for the Russian Revolution, the real Russian Revolution was in early 1917 lead by Alexander Kerensky which was non violent. What took place on November 7, 1917 (October, 1917 by the calendar that Russia was using) was nothing more than a Bolshevik coup d’etat.
if Alexander 111rd had lived, chances there wouldn’t have been a revolution, or it may have been forestalled, nicholas 2nd was a weak monarch, plagued by the plight of his son, which led to his wife’s dependence on rasputin, the social revolutionaries took advantage of that circumstance, of course azev their second in command was an okrana agent, true liberals like the kadets constitutional democrats were few on the ground,
re louis, he reaped the consequences of aiding the colonies against the english, and a bad harvest, in the course of the little ice age, there were slightly more liberals like lafayette and lavoisier but not much more, the jacobin spirit of rousseau overwhelmed the sensibility of say montesquieu, (sound familiar)
there is a tenuous link between the three events, the french aided the colonies and incurred a great debt in a continental war, the revolution that arose made catherine willing to suppress the admitttedly weak enlightenment in Russia, that awoke a century later under alexander 2nd, albeit too late,
there are rough parallels in the country from whence my parents came, machado was the despot of the 30s, deposed by the students, the military including batista, were allied with the communists, and they drafted their own version of a green new deal, (probably with the imput of sumner welles) the 1940 constitution, which was unworkable, the students became more militant after the war, the last liberal president, prio was fabulously corrupt, hence batista rode to the rescue, one of the leading reformers, eddie chibas killed himself, and hence
we inherited the wind,
There is only one way to stop the spreading rot of the corrupt American judiciary, and that is through the Supreme Court. Three of the justices are already Democrat political hacks. That’s why the Dems are suddenly desperate to get Clarence Thomas. If they do, and our last hope hangs on a weakling like Roberts, we will be royally screwed.
Hard to know without actually seeing the video, and always easy to second-guess trial tactics, but I wonder if Chauvin might not have been better served if his attorney had assented to the admission of the Pope video and used it to (1) rebut the suggestion of particular animus toward Floyd; (2) buttress the “acting in accord with dept. policy” defense; (3) place the burden on the state of explaining what the salient difference was in Chauvin’s conduct between Floyd and Pope, where they had cleared Chauvin; (4) emphasize that use of the technique was not designed to cause death?
Our judicial system is broken probably for decades to come. Any Kangaroo Court is giving justice the boot. Any city is afraid of riots to break out again, getting no repayments and as the St Floyd went, billions were lost.
I do feel very sorry for Derek and his family, he is a martyr.
Mass Lawyer: that jury was going to convict Chauvin of murder regardless of facts or evidence.
The jury must not have had any first aid training. Floyd clearly had taken drugs. Holding him on his side was the smart move since vomit (a common result of an overdose) would dribble onto the ground instead of being aspirated into the lungs. Lungs don’t respond well to the mixture of stomach acid and digestive enzymes. If you are upset by the way a patient is handled, stay out of an Emergency Room. From what I saw in the video segments, Floyd was held in a safe position in case he fought, convulsed, or passed out and vomited. Allowing Floyd to flop onto his back might have made the fools in the crowd happy, but would have been almost certainly been lethal in an overdose situation. The Police had already called the ambulance for an overdose, but the situation degenerated faster than they expected. Overdoses are like that sometimes.
An Aunt aspirated a can of Fresca (carbonated grapefruit). She died ~2 1/2 days later from the lung damage. Lungs don’t deal well with insults.