GUILTY MN - George Floyd, 46, died in custody, Minneapolis, 25 May 2020 #19 - Chauvin Jury Deliberations #2

[sds71]

@Gia_Vang
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey when I asked when the national guard will be off our streets: “Very soon.” He said they’re having calls with those agencies involved with MN OSP to figure out when that could happen

 

[ilovewings]

Totally agree and I really don't think the State has gotten the credit due them. I thought it was a very cautious, conscientious presentation. I didn't agree with every decision they made but I appreciated their effort to thwart the defense hypotheticals before they were made. They built a solid case brick by brick and left little to chance.

Their best decision, imo, was front loading character evidence about Mr. Floyd so they could shape the narrative initially. And holy cannoli, they got convictions on all 3 charges!

On the flip side, I know a lot of people believe Eric Nelson did as good a job as he could but I disagree. Perhaps adequate but not good. Mr. Nelson, imo, never presented any defense. His sole strategy was to create doubt - it's the only time I can think of off the top of my head an entire defense rested on (usually irrelevant) hypotheticals. It was a tough case made tougher by a less than sympathetic client but I still believe there was a better alternative than Mr. Nelson's hypothetical 'anything, everything but the knee' blueprint. All JMO

I think the prosecution's case was almost perfect: I do think Nelson put forth a defense: blame the victim: Floyd resisted, he had heart disease and was a drug user and both of those caused his death. Oh, and blame the "angry mob"--- The prosecution had the video- without the video, the case would have been much more difficult to prosecute successfully.

 

[Tippy Lynn]

If the max. sentence is 75 years on three counts, what is a 'reasonable' sentence for this first time offender?

Serious question. TIA

Cahill asked the attorneys to file written arguments regarding aggravated sentencing factors that could add time to Chauvin's sentence for restraining Floyd on the pavement.

If Cahill accepts the prosecution's contention that aggravating factors should be applied at sentencing, the maximum term the 45-year-old Chauvin could receive would be 30 years. The first 20 years would be served in prison and the balance on supervised release if he qualifies.

The state is already on the record that among the factors are: Floyd was especially vulnerable, Chauvin was a uniformed police officer acting in a position of authority, and his acts were witnessed by children, one of them 9 years old.

Derek Chauvin cuffed after murder, manslaughter convictions in death of George Floyd

This gives a good understanding of what DC’s sentence might look like.

ETA-
DC will not serve consecutive sentences. He will be sentenced on the most serious of the counts. The most serious count he was found guilty of is Second-degree unintentional murder which has a sentence of up to 40 years.

 

[Lilibet]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...261cc6-a1e2-11eb-a774-7b47ceb36ee8_story.html

If not for this young lady recording what was happening that fateful day, there would have never been a conviction IMO--

Yes, there absolutely would not even have been a trial without her video. Darnella is owed a huge debt for her courage and tenacity that day. If Darnella has any aspirations beyond high school, I hope some of the luminaries who praised her in the WaPo story you linked will use their influence to make it happen...

A few months ago, Frazier found herself accepting an award from PEN America, the free-speech advocacy organization. Filmmaker Spike Lee presented it to her in a virtual ceremony noting that the award was given to recognize courage. Luminaries including Rita Dove and Meryl Streep offered kind words to the young woman from hundreds of miles away. Law professor Anita Hill — famous for accusing a soon-to-be Supreme Court justice of sexual harassment nearly 30 years ago — spoke to Darnella Frazier, too.

“Your quick thinking and bravery under immense pressure has made the world safer and more just,” Hill said. Like the others, Hill added: “Thank you.”

Again, Frazier was quiet but centered when she spoke: “I never would imagine out of my whole 17 years of living that this will be me,” she said. “It’s just a lot to take in, but I couldn’t say thank you enough.”
BBM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...261cc6-a1e2-11eb-a774-7b47ceb36ee8_story.html

I hope everyone can get through the WaPo paywall to read this important article about Darnella as well as one about another young girl caught up in history that I’ve described below.

Juxtposed on the same page as this story about Darnella is the story of the young girl in the iconic 1970 photograph, screaming next to a student murdered by police during an anti-war demonstration at Kent State. Mary Anne Vecchio, was a 14 year old runaway from Florida when one photograph changed her life. She said it ruined her life, and the photographer, a student at the time, had always felt guilty about it. When they finally met years later (and they hugged and cried together), the power of the photo became clear to him...

John [the photographer] had an epiphany about the power of his photo. “It was because she was 14, because of her youth, that she ran to help, that she ran to do something. There were other people, 18, 19, 20 years old, who didn’t get close to the body. She did because she was a kid. She was a kid reacting to the horror in front of her. Had she not been 14, the picture wouldn’t have had the impact it did.”
<snip>
Last May, however, when she watched the video of George Floyd’s death, she was so shaken, it was as if the electronic scrim of her TV had dissolved. She jumped off her couch and yelled at the crowd in the video, “Why is no one helping him?” She sobs as she describes that moment to me. “Doesn’t anyone see what’s going on?”

“Mary Ann,” I say. “It seems to me that you’re still that girl in the photo, you’re still that girl saying, ‘Doesn’t anyone see what’s happening here?’”

She stops crying abruptly. “But it’s been 50 years,” she says. “Why can’t I move on?”

What would it take to move on? I ask.

“Maybe if I do some good for the planet,” she says. She tells me that she does small, secret acts of charity every weekend, when she goes “undercover” to the Walmart parking lot near her home and leaves canned foods, staples and her homegrown avocados in an empty shopping cart for someone to discover. “I feel like I need to do something good,” she says, crying again.

<Personal note: By this time I’m crying too as I read this to my husband. We remember this photo well, having marched against the war ourselves on our college campus.>

You’ve already done something profoundly good, I tell her. “In that moment when you knelt over Jeffrey Miller’s body,” I say, “you expressed the grief and horror that so many people were feeling. You helped end the Vietnam War.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/maga...en-being-national-symbol/?itid=mr_lifestyle_1

Both Darnella and Mary Anne, kids “reacting to the horror in front of” them and expressing in action their compassion for a suffering fellow human, will be remembered in history for the parts they played in ending the Vietnam War and (hopefully) ending police brutality toward African Americans (and other victims). Acts of courageous compassion can have far-reaching results.
JMO

 

[JerseyGirl]

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GUILTY - MN - George Floyd, 46, killed in police custody, Minneapolis, 25 May 2020 #20