The trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is underway in Hennepin County in Minnesota. For those who may have forgotten, Chauvin is facing charges of murder for trying to save George Floyd’s life after Floyd had overdosed on drugs. Just like the George Zimmerman case, these charges should never have been brought.
The trial is in its early stages with jury selection going on each day. There are other issues being worked as well. However, those issues are outside the scope of what I will discuss here. My focus will be on jury selection. In particular, I am going to focus on Wednesday’s activities in this regard.
I am relying heavily on attorney Andrew Branca’s efforts. Branca is covering the trial for Legal Insurrection and has provided live streaming coverage along with commentary of the jury selection process.
On Wednesday, the jury selection process, known as voir dire, worked through seven prospective jurors seating two. That brought the total number of jurors seated to five. Fourteen are needed, twelve to make up the jury and 2 alternates.
The process allows for dismissal from serving for cause. If a juror is found to harbor bias either for or against the defendant, such person will be dismissed from serving by the judge. In addition, for this trial, the prosecution has nine peremptory strikes and the defense has been given 15. These may be used to strike someone without reason or cause.
There are many concerns about this trial beyond the fact that this is a witch hunt. The autopsy showed that George Floyd died of a drug overdose involving the drug fentanyl. The medical examiner was quoted in a memo stating such. He said that if Floyd had been found deceased at home, the ruling would have been death due to a drug overdose.
The amount of fentanyl in his system was more than three times a lethal dose. And the symptoms Floyd displayed, particularly difficulty in breathing, are consistent with this diagnosis.
Please note that the norfentanyl level is problematic as well. The toxicology results demonstrate to a certainty that George Floyd was the author of his own demise and that the police officers (three others have been charged) are guilty of nothing more than following their training in trying to save his life.
Two previous posts on this subject are instructive. They are A Rush To Judgement and The Truth About George Floyd’s Death.
Regardless, the trial is underway and jury selection, an important part of this process, is where we are right now.
Wednesday’s activities with regard to one potential juror appear to be somewhat problematic. This person was flagged the defense as raising a “ton of red flags.” Each prospective juror had filled out a questionnaire prior to the start of the trial.
Some of the items that appear to disqualify the juror include the following:
So, this person (juror #30) checked the box on perception as very negative and then went on to say the defendant had “murdered” Floyd. This seems on the surface to be a strongly held opinion. He did not qualify this statement at all.
In the questionnaire, #30 went on to claim strong agreement with the idea that blacks do not receive equal treatment in the criminal justice system. While I might agree that there is disparate treatment of people in the justice system, I would point out that it tends to be along the lines of rich versus poor not so much black versus white. It also depends on which political party one supports.
So, here #30 is telling the world that he believes that this particular interaction with the police occurred because the individual was black. The fact, that is well known, that this interaction was the result of Floyd passing a counterfeit $20 appears to be unimportant to this juror who did demonstrate significant knowledge of the event.
There were other such interactions that demonstrated strong bias on the part of #30. When confronted by the defense attorney about his ability to be fair and impartial, #30 did the Potomac two step. He passed this decision off to the court.
Branca notes:
“In my opinion this response alone should have been sufficient to remove #30 for cause.”
The judge did not do this. Why not? It is bad enough that the Attorney General for the state has tried to poison the jury pool with inflammatory remarks. Now the judge presiding does not remove someone for cause when it is out there for all to see.
As Sundance noted:
Just like the cases of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Freddie Grey, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor and many more, the background political activists are attempting to manipulate public opinion to achieve their goals. This has been the Marxist roadmap and racial division strategy for the past decade. “Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste”
The defense did use a peremptory strike to remove this obviously biased person. However, they should not have had to do that. #30 opined about two systems of justice. Clearly he was part of that here.
I think Officer Chauvin has about as much chance of a fair trial as would occur from a lynch mob.