New Floyd Murder Charges Will Be Tough to Prove and May Imperil Good Cops

[Victoria33]

Mark your calendar, the verdict, however it goes, could come pretty close to election day in November some people say though, I don’t understand that. It seems possible. I don’t know when the trial will take place. Imagine “not guilty” verdicts near election day? It seems like it would be hard to get an unbiased jury as well, at least, in a lot of the Twin Cities. Maybe the trial will need to be moved.

George Floyd Case: Getting Charges Right | National Review

New Floyd Murder Charges Will Be Tough to Prove and May Imperil Good Cops​

By Andrew C. McCarthy

June 4, 2020

In a politically charged case, it is more important, not less, to get the charges right.

Prosecutors in Minnesota have filed an amended complaint against Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd, adding a second-degree “felony murder” charge. This dangerously flawed theory could be used to portray any police restraint of a resistant suspect as criminal assault.

The amended complaint against Chauvin also re-alleges the two homicide charges originally filed last week: third-degree “depraved indifference” murder and second-degree manslaughter, both of which better fit the facts of the case while posing no risk of criminalizing the legitimate use of force by good cops.

…

The second-degree murder charge is now the main charge against all four officers. Essentially, the theory is that they committed a felony assault when they subdued a suspect who was resisting arrest. During the course of carrying out that “crime,” prosecutors allege, Floyd’s death resulted.

I heard on the radio, that all 4 are looking at 40 years maximum in prison… so, quite a few developments.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

I think the trial will be delayed to next year and it will be moved out of the Twin Cities. There is precedent for both so this isn’t a far fetched statement. It will still be an expensive three ring circus though.

It is easy in the political environment to want to throw the book at the cops, but cooler heads have to prevail on the charges to present. It is very important to charge correctly as the more serious charges carry a higher number of elements to prove for a guilty verdict, hence overreaching can produce a not guilty verdict because not all elements required for a guilty verdict can be proven.

The last criminal jury I sat on involved prosecutorial overreach on the charges against the defendant. I have no idea what possessed the prosecutors to go as far as they did, but they clearly could not prove the elements of the charges. We the jury did not have a difficult time returning not guilty verdicts even though we found the defendant to be not very likeable.

 

[dscath]

I heard on the radio, that all 4 are looking at 40 years maximum in prison… so, quite a few developments.

40 years in prison will give even the youngest one more than 2 decades more of life than they deprived Mr. Floyd of.

May Mr. Floyd Rest In Peace, and may God have mercy on the souls of the accused.

 

[ChuckB]

I heard on the radio, that all 4 are looking at 40 years maximum in prison…

Forty years in protective custody. Or forty days max in the general population.

I bet those guys wish they could do May 25 over.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

It is easy in the political environment to want to throw the book at the cops…

It has never been easy to throw the book at cops.

 

[Rubee]

There’s one cop, I heard, who was only 9 months old on the job. He may be guilty of just going along with those ‘in charge.’ I would not mind him getting a much reduced sentence. The other two I also want punished but not as much as the kneeling cop, who was not only the ranking and most experienced officer but the one who actually did the killing. I want him to go away for the longest. The others I want punished but not to the same extent and for the least experienced one, I really hope he does not get a very long sentence. But I’ll wait to hear the details to know why they charged the other three with the same offence as the kneeling senior cop.

 

[DENNYINMI]

Where are these good cops you are implying within the title of your thread.

So they can push Grandpa, leave him bleeding from the head, get suspended, and 60 others walk off the job in support of the bully cops?

I dunno. Strange world…Norman Rockwell portrait of the Police officer ( I prefer that to “cop”) next to the stool of the little blonde headed boy at the ice cream parlor.

Oh the Good ol’ Days. But, were they that good for everyone?

 

[Cruciferi]

Where are these good cops you are implying within the title of your thread.

They’re your neighbors and fellow citizens. I’m friends with a few and they’re wonderful people. They’re no different than me or you.

Oh the Good ol’ Days

Are a myth. Every age, century, and decade has problems.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

It has never been easy to throw the book at cops.

You can’t say never anymore. Not with the ease with which charges were brought against this set of cops.

I’ll settle for rarely, that would have been much more accurate. There have been cases that got so much notoriety that it was easy to bring charges against the law enforcement officers involved. I’ll name three: Rodney King, Amadou Diallo and Kelly Thomas. More examples can be found if you care to search for them.

What is dang hard is to get a guilty verdict. Which leads to severe accountability to the public issues among officers and prosecutors (who have their own bad apples too) that cut across all races. For which I support the abolition of “Qualified Immunity”.

In the meantime, given the difficult of getting a guilty verdict against law enforcement officers, it is important to charge them correctly as I said above, to not give in to the temptation to overdo the charges due to the outcry. It’s not what one knows that matters in a courtroom, it’s what one can prove. The cops who shot Diallo were charged with 2nd degree murder but were not convicted. The lead cop who beat Thomas to death was charged with second degree murder while his two fellow cops received lesser charges. None were convicted.

 

[silentwitness]

The Arrest and Death of George Floyd: An Ex-Cop's View

 

[ThinkingSapien]

You can’t say never anymore. Not with the ease with which charges were brought against this set of cops.

I’m not sure I would call it ease. Were there not multiple witnesses recording their observations I think the outcome of this might have been different. George crying for his mother probably also raised the empathy that was felt for it. There’s asymmetry to the strength of evidence needed to take action for someone abusing police authority vs a non-police that is being accused by one. There’s also an asymmetry in the amount of protections that one has for those actions.

There have been quite a number of incidents over the past week where I think had there not been cameras that there would have been more corrective action. Rather, there have been untrue statements about what had occurred issued by those supporting those police that had stepped out-of-line that were later retracted because of the strength of the video evidence that showed otherwise.

I can’t say that I know what the solutions will be. But there have been a number of sections of the government that have started making revisions to their use-or-force policies in response to the demonstrations.

 

[JanR]

They need to be very careful about over charging.

The original charge, third-degree murder/manslaughter is provable beyond a reasonable doubt, and that’s what’s required for a conviction. That charge involves reckless disregard for life that results in death. That’s a slam-dunk in this case. These officers clearly showed a reckless disregard for George Floyd’s life, which resulted in his death.

Any higher charges involve proving intent. It’s arguable that continuing to press on Mr. Floyd’s neck for a full eight minutes, despite warnings that he was killing him, could indicate intent, as the officer had the choice of lifting himself off of his neck, and failed to do so. His partners had the choice of coming to Mr. Floyd’s aid, but did nothing to help him.

We must also remember that Mr. Floyd was handcuffed at the time, so couldn’t possibly have posed any threat to these officers. That increases their culpability.

Still, proving intent, short of a confession, requires the ability to read another’s mind, and since most jurors aren’t mind-readers, it would be difficult to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

But reckless disregard for life resulting in death is a no-brainer, here. That’s the most provable charge, and I think they should have stuck to it. Now that charges have been leveled that are harder to prove, there’s a very real risk that these officers could go unpunished, and that would be the gravest injustice of all.

 

[F_Marturana]

There was no pulse for three minutes , and he continued to kneel.

 

[Pattylt]

If these cops are able to walk away after all of the media attention, I fear what would happen next! The whole country may have to go on lockdown! And if things become violent, I may not like it or want it but, I can understand it.

 

[JanR]

If they get off without any punishment at all, it will prove, once and for all, that our justice system doesn’t really care about justice when it comes to abuses of citizens by law enforcement. It will prove that “justice” really means “just us”.

For the life of me, I just can’t see them getting off without some serious consequences – but, it has happened before in these kinds of cases. I just wish they hadn’t bumped up the charges, when what they had was sufficient. The maximum penalty for third-degree murder/manslaughter is 25 years.

What’s really needed is NOT defunding or abolishing police departments. That would be insanity. What’s needed is sweeping policy changes and more careful vetting, better training, and real discipline when legitimate complaints are filed by citizens.

And the police unions need to stay out of it. Independent commissions, truly UNbiased, nonpolitical and sincerely interested in fairness on all sides, need to be established to ensure accountability when it’s warranted, and these should be the channels through which citizens can file their complaints of police brutality and civil rights violations by law enforcement personnel. The commissioners shouldn’t be in anyone’s pocket. The moment these commissions become corrupted, they should be dissolved and new commissions established to replace them. And, it wouldn’t hurt if the members of these bodies were elected by the citizens of their jurisdictions instead of being appointed.

Reforms are definitely in order, not the least of which should be juries and judges who will no longer just rubber stamp acquittals as a matter of routine. That shows favoritism rather than applying the law equally.

Most police officers are good people who take seriously their oath to protect and serve. But when the system is rigged so that bad apples regularly escape discipline so they can re-offend repeatedly, it reflects badly on the entire system. That needs to change, and maybe now, at long last, it shall.

Hope springs eternal.

 

[OurLadyofSorrows]

I bet the verdict will duck and weave around the respiratory illness of Covid 19.

 

[pnewton]

40 years in prison will give even the youngest one more than 2 decades more of life than they deprived Mr. Floyd of.

You know this how?

That sort of math is not how criminal justice works. As I have mentioned previously, judges seldom stack charges. I have never known them to stack charges from a single incident. Multiple charges are presented to have more than one avenue for conviction, not to increase maximum jail time.

that our justice system doesn’t really care

But the justice system does not care. that is why justice wears a blindfold. Political expediency cannot be considered. That is the path of retribution and vengeance, not justice.

 

[JanR]

I bet the verdict will duck and weave around the respiratory illness of Covid 19.

I sincerely hope the jury doesn’t use Mr. Floyd’s other health issues to deflect from the crime that was committed against him, or to minimize its seriousness.

Having been handcuffed while the assault against him was taking place, Mr. Floyd had no way of defending himself against it, and was totally helpless, regardless of anything else that was going on inside of his body.

In view of this, I feel those other findings are far less relevant when compared to Derek Chauvin’s heinous conduct, yet could all too easily be used to deny full justice to George Floyd and his family.

The latest report of Mr. Floyd having had the Corona Virus seems just another distraction from the crime that was committed against him. According to that report, he had had (past tense) COVID19, and was no longer infected by it when the assault occurred.

I hope the jury will focus on the criminality of these officers’ behaviors and not get sidetracked by all of this other stuff being put out there to divert attention away from it.

 

[JanR]

pnewton: I didn’t say anything about “political expediency.” I said that if these officers get off without any punishment at all, it will prove that our justice system doesn’t really care about justice when it comes to abuses of citizens by law enforcement.

 

[RidgeSprinter]

And add to the fact, that multiple videos of the incident will be replayed, replayed, and replayed ( the defense will work at getting them replayed). It will wear on the empathic jury members.