When it was announced that the jury in the Derek Chauvin murder trial reached a verdict within 24 hours of Monday's closing arguments, I had a hunch that he'd be guilty on all three counts.
Jurors convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on Tuesday of all the counts filed against him — second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter — in the death of George Floyd, who died after being pinned under his knee for more than nine minutes last May.
Chauvin looked stern and glanced around the courtroom as the paper with the verdicts were removed from an envelope and read by Judge Peter Cahill.
The fired police officer had on a paper mask and showed no significant reaction to the results. When his bail was revoked, he stood up, put his hands behind his back, was handcuffed and gave a nod to defense attorney Eric Nelson as he was led out the back door of the courtroom by a Hennepin County sheriff's deputy.
The Sheriff's Office said Chauvin was transferred to the Minnesota Department of Corrections. The agency said Chauvin was booked into the state prison at Oak Park Heights, at 4:55 p.m. CDT, 48 minutes after the verdicts were read. Chauvin was transferred to the same prison for safety reasons after his initial arrest in the case last year.
Cahill thanked the jurors, who each confirmed their votes as correctly read. ""I have to thank you on behalf of the people of the State of Minnesota not only for jury service, but heavy duty jury service," he said.
A fair number of legal analysts I heard/read before the trial indicated that the 2nd degree murder charge was a stretch since the high threshold of "beyond a reasonable doubt" had to be met. But as the trial progressed, there was some pretty damning testimony from law enforcement, including Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo.
"Once Mr. Floyd had stopped resisting — and certainly once he was in distress and trying to verbalize that — that should have stopped," the chief said after spelling out department policy on when to use force compared to using de-escalation tactics.
Then there was this bit from Lt. Richard Zimmerman.
Prosecutor Matthew Frank asked Zimmerman about the "prone position," which Chauvin used on Floyd.
"Once you handcuff a person you need to get them out of the prone position as quickly as possible, because it restricts their breathing," Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman added that being handcuffed "stretches the muscles back through your chest and it makes it more difficult to breathe."
According to Zimmerman's account of his police training, officers are taught to turn the person put into the prone position on their side and get them off their chest. "If you're laying on your chest, that's constricting your breathing even more," he said.
He told the jury that he has been trained in the dangers of the prone position since 1985. But Zimmerman said he has never been trained to put his knee on someone's neck while they are in that position.
"That would be the top tier, the deadly force," he said. "Because if your knee is on someone's neck, that can kill them."
Perhaps what really sealed Chauvin's fate was, in the opinion of National Review's Andy McCarthy, the ineptitude of his defense. Definitely read McCarthy's entire account here.
While it's certainly possible that the jury was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin committed murder, I can't help but think they were swayed by the repercussions of anything less than guilty of all charges. Certainly they had to be wary that a "not guilty" verdict on second degree murder alone would have resulted in more destruction of a city that is still reeling from rioting, looting and fires a mere 10-1/2 months ago. And in this era of leaking people's personal information on the internet, I'm sure there was a sense of dread among jurors that their identities would be learned and thus be in constant fear of their personal well being.
So what's next? Well sentencing will commence in about two months, at which point we can anticipate an appeal. Heck, Judge Cahill pretty much laid the groundwork for it.
Watch at about the :19 mark: pic.twitter.com/bbmgQF3ePp
— Andy Grewal (@AndyGrewal) April 19, 2021
Add to that President Joe Biden throwing in his two cents just hours before the verdict, you can bet that Chauvin's team will argue vehemently that a fair trial was downright impossible.
I'm guessing we haven't heard the last of this saga.
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