Cop who killed George Floyd stabbed in prison

[Valcazar]

I, too, agree that the likely correct charge should have been manslaughter. As I said, I do not think he wanted to kill Floyd, but was negligent.

The jury agreed with you that he wasn't trying to kill floyd.
That's why the murder charge was for unintentional murder.

I do not think cops are actively trying to murder POC, just that they tend to go the use of deadly force significantly faster than they do with other suspects.

This was the narrative driving the protests.

Now, is that all cops? Of course not. But I think we can probably agree that cops, especially in the US, do not get enough training. They are not trained adequately to deescalate situations, some are just on power trips, and then there are the bad ones that make up their own goon squads (including black officers who go and beat suspects or both colours).

As for why the people don't trust cops....its because you cannot trust cops. Read a police report following an incident, then see what is actually presented in court or shown on body cam footage. It's frequently different, where the cops either lied or exaggerated in order to make them look better/suspect look worse (or to give cover for whatever bad things the cop did). Again, not saying that all cops do this, but it tends to happen in situations where black suspects are hurt or killed.

Of which the Floyd arrest was a classic example.

 

[Dutch Oven]

Presumably such evidence was presented at trial and was found to be unconvincing.

Yes, it was. But I don't have any confidence that the jury could apply the sophisticated analysis required by Minnesota's Murder 2 statute on the facts of the case. Don't you live in the real world? Don't you understand the limits of the average person when it comes to complex problem solving, and the influence that everything following Floyd's death would have on the ability of an average person to dispassionately analyze the evidence and apply the law?

I take no comfort in the idea that whatever a jury decides must be correct and rational.

You are allowed to believe whatever you like.

Childish. More on this below.

Which he was.
He was found guilty of manslaughter.

He was not JUST found guilty of manslaughter, so I'm not sure what point you think you're making. That manslaughter conviction was used as a predicate for conviction on Murder 2. That's very troubling analysis, considering that both charges relied on the exact same actions of the officer. My comments are abundantly clear that I can understand the conviction for manslaughter, but not manslaughter PLUS murder 2 on the same predicate facts.

Not something I believe you actually believe, though.
Most of the people on this board believe quite explicitly that the cops should not be held accountable.

Childish, part 2. I post what I believe. If you don't accept that, then don't read my posts. Go ahead and disagree with my posts if you like, but don't make yourself look like a fool by claiming to know that some other thought is what's really in my head. Obviously, what I write really bothers you, since you take so much of your time responding to, but don't let your emotions cause you to post such childish things.

As to "most people", that's one of the most puerile arguments anyone ever presents on this board. One, you have no way of making any data driven analysis of what most people on this board think. Two, logically, how does your quip even make any sense? You seem to be arguing that if "most people" don't think cops should be held accountable, then I must think the same? In what universe is that a rational thought? Unhinged.

And again, he was tried and convicted for negligence and manslaughter.

Wrong. Even Wikipedia manages to get the real convictions right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Derek_Chauvin

The convictions were: a) 2nd degree murder, b) 3rd degree murder, and c) 2nd degree manslaughter.

And again, the problem you have is that you are framing the protests as what happened in response to his guilty verdict.
They happened in response to him killing Floyd and then lying about it.

The riots didn't happen because a cop tried to defend himself by attempting to minimize or avoid his responsibility for the death of a suspect. The riots happened to pressure the legal system into seeking maximum responsibility, and to advance the wider narrative that cops have open contempt for black suspects and wouldn't hesitate to kill them if given the opportunity.

People don't riot because someone lies. Lying happens all the time. They riot over the narrative around what someone did or didn't do.

What you are saying is that after claiming nothing happened, then being caught out because of the video, the entire state apparatus should have insisted that it was manslaughter and murder not even considered by a court of law.
You believe that this would have made protests less likely.

I am skeptical of your assumptions here.

I'm not sure what you've even said here. What I am saying is that manslaughter cases should be treated as manslaughter cases, not murder 2, regardless of who was killed, who did the killing and regardless about what public narrative is generated and what civil unrest arises from it.

 

[Valcazar]

Yes, it was. But I don't have any confidence that the jury could apply the sophisticated analysis required by Minnesota's Murder 2 statute on the facts of the case. Don't you live in the real world? Don't you understand the limits of the average person when it comes to complex problem solving, and the influence that everything following Floyd's death would have on the ability of an average person to dispassionately analyze the evidence and apply the law?

Of course I do.
But "I don't agree with them" doesn't mean they were wrong.
Between a group of uninformed citizens and you analyzing the subtleties of the law, I clearly would side on the uninformed citizens, but that's neither here nor there.

There isn't really a lot of sophisticated analysis to apply for unintentional Murder 2, though, is there?
Did he commit an assault and accidentally kill him while doing so?

That said, while I don't object to the Murder 2 finding, I would have been ok with them finding Chauvin not guilty of unintentional murder 2. Not having sat in the trial, I can't say which way I would have decided if presented with all the evidence.

I take no comfort in the idea that whatever a jury decides must be correct and rational.

That's fine.
But as long as the US is a common law tradition, that's what you are stuck with.
Would Chauvin have gotten a different result if this was France or Romania or some other civil law country? Possibly.
Hard to say.

He was not JUST found guilty of manslaughter, so I'm not sure what point you think you're making. That manslaughter conviction was used as a predicate for conviction on Murder 2. That's very troubling analysis, considering that both charges relied on the exact same actions of the officer. My comments are abundantly clear that I can understand the conviction for manslaughter, but not manslaughter PLUS murder 2 on the same predicate facts.

Are you trying to argue that the manslaughter charge was the felony the prosecution used to allow murder 2 to be charged?
Or are you trying to argue that the same set of facts can't be charged as multiple crimes?

Go ahead and disagree with my posts if you like, but don't make yourself look like a fool by claiming to know that some other thought is what's really in my head.

I am disagreeing with your posts.
Since you insist on claiming you know better than the people in the trial and they weren't sophisticated enough to get the right result, I will continue to disagree with you because I think you're wrong.

Obviously, what I write really bothers you, since you take so much of your time responding to, but don't let your emotions cause you to post such childish things.

LOL.

No.
What you write is a good template to work through the reasoning of the trial.

As to "most people", that's one of the most puerile arguments anyone ever presents on this board. One, you have no way of making any data driven analysis of what most people on this board think. Two, logically, how does your quip even make any sense? You seem to be arguing that if "most people" don't think cops should be held accountable, then I must think the same? In what universe is that a rational thought? Unhinged.

I am basing that on the many, many cop threads we have seen on this board.
You can disagree with my analysis.
I stand by it, though.

Wrong. Even Wikipedia manages to get the real convictions right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Derek_Chauvin

The convictions were: a) 2nd degree murder, b) 3rd degree murder, and c) 2nd degree manslaughter.

Second degree manslaughter requires negligence.
Read the damn statute.

609.205 MANSLAUGHTER IN THE SECOND DEGREE.

A person who causes the death of another by any of the following means is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than ten years or to payment of a fine of not more than $20,000, or both:


(1) by the person's culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another;

"culpable negligence" is required.

The riots didn't happen because a cop tried to defend himself by attempting to minimize or avoid his responsibility for the death of a suspect. The riots happened to pressure the legal system into seeking maximum responsibility, and to advance the wider narrative that cops have open contempt for black suspects and wouldn't hesitate to kill them if given the opportunity.

No.
The riots started because the cops attacked the protesters in most cases.
The protests did start to highlight that cops have open contempt for black suspects and wouldn't hesitate to kill them. (Not "if given the opportunity". The argument isn't that cops are going around hunting black folk to kill for sport.)

People don't riot because someone lies. Lying happens all the time. They riot over the narrative around what someone did or didn't do.

And those narratives can be powered by lies, I am sure you agree.
But again, given the protests happened before the arrest, and the original arrest didn't include the second-degree murder charge, I find the argument that if they had just only charged him with manslaughter it would have defused everything unpersuasive.

I'm not sure what you've even said here. What I am saying is that manslaughter cases should be treated as manslaughter cases, not murder 2, regardless of who was killed, who did the killing and regardless about what public narrative is generated and what civil unrest arises from it.

You are the one who said that if they had kept the charges to manslaughter, it would have defused the riots.
Given they had the evidence for higher charges and got convictions on them, it really does seem that you think they should have deliberately downplayed the charges to create a narrative that the cops did nothing wrong.