The trial of Officer Derek Chauvin has entered the verdict watch stage. Closing arguments have been made. The case has been turned over to the jury. To refresh, Officer Chauvin has been charged with murder and manslaughter for trying to save George Floyd’s life after he had overdosed on drugs.
In a reasonable and fair world, the charges against Officer Chauvin would never have been brought. However, just as they did in Baltimore with the Freddie Gray death in custody, these charges are a political show. The charges were brought in an attempt to mollify the mob. This is the left’s attempt to prove to the country that anyone, regardless of the good that they are trying to do, can be put away in a cage simply because the left wants it that way.
I am reminded of the book by Harvey Silverglate, Three Felonies A Day, where Silverglate presents compelling evidence that federal prosecutors could make up numerous violations of federal law against anyone who became disfavored. Is the title an exaggeration? Without a doubt. But only slightly. Perhaps one of the more illuminating sections of the book is where prosecutors play a game trying to come up crimes that they could charge against specific individuals if they wanted to.
Silverglate is talking about federal prosecutors. However, if anyone does not believe that the same system is present in state prosecutions, they are just fooling themselves. This case is another example of a criminal justice system in the country that is out of control.
The left has been stoked the flames and sensitivities of the mob since last year when Floyd died. The riots last summer killed many people and caused more than $2 billion in damage. Now the Communists Democrats are trying to intimidate the jury by calling for violence if a guilty verdict is not reached.
The facts of the case are not in dispute. George Floyd ingested drugs to avoid their discovery by police when they were called over his attempt to pass a bogus $20 bill. Floyd had a three-fold, fatal level of fentanyl in his system when he died. There were other drugs present as well. The medical examiner stated that if Floyd had been discovered deceased in his home, the death would have been ruled due to a drug overdose.
I have been following the case as have many other Americans. In a just world the verdict of not guilty would be returned post haste. However, this is a political show trial. The left knows the facts. But the facts do not matter to them. They are trying to create a narrative that America is a racist hellhole where local police roam the streets looking for blacks to kill. They want to end local policing and have police functions come from the federal government. This would give them more control over how policing is done. In effect they are trying to get to the point where America would have its own version of the KGB or East German Stasi. Perhaps they are already there.
To this end Communists Democrats have been trying to bring a lot of pressure on the jury to deliver a guilty verdict. First, the city of Minneapolis reached a $27 million settlement with the George Floyd family over his death while in police custody. This occurred while jurors were being selected. It resulted in several jurors being dismissed when they acknowledged that this indicated Chauvin’s guilt.
Maxine Waters, a House Democrat from California, went public calling for a guilty verdict.
“I hope we get a verdict that says, guilty, guilty, guilty,” she said of the Chauvin trial. “And if we don’t, we cannot go away. We’ve got to stay on the street.”
“We get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational,” Waters added. “We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.”
She was backed in this call for confrontation by Speaker Pelosi who said Waters did not need to apologize for her incitement to violence calls. Pelosi herself came out with a statement about the trial.
“As outraged as we are by his death, let us be prayerful that the truth will prevail and will honor George Floyd’s memory.”
Outrage? The real outrage here should be the fact that any of the actions of the officers in question (there were four) resulted in a criminal trial. Honoring George Floyd’s memory? This literally means honoring a serial criminal, a drug addict who was once again abusing drugs who tried to conceal this fact by ingesting the drugs that killed him. That is worthy of real outrage.
The judge was understandably upset with these blatant attempts by elite politicians to intimidate the jurors as they began their deliberations. However, he refused to declare a mistrial.
What will the verdict be? It should be not guilty. Chauvin and his fellow officers are innocent not just not guilty. Can the jury withstand the pressures being brought on them and deliver a fair verdict? We should know soon.