[Note of correction: Sloppily, carelessly and unforgivably, I stated in the post that Floyd was convicted of first degree murder, and he was not. Chauvin was convicted of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder (which is manslaughter), and second-degree manslaughter and convicted on all of the charges, resulting in a 22.5 year prison sentence. That result is still unconscionable given the facts and equivocal evidence. But let’s get the facts right. My apologies.]
Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murdering George Floyd for many reasons, none fair, valid or based on justice or civil rights, once again has a chance to see his kangaroo court conviction thrown out.
A new court filing by Chauvin’s lawyer, the third aimed at getting Chauvin’s indefensible murder conviction reversed, alleges, among other things, ‘illegal’ and ‘fraudulent’ conduct by Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.” Greg Joseph contends that there were serious breaches of proper procedure and due process by authorities because the Black Lives Matter mob was so determined to use George Floyd’s death as a righteous rallying point to advance a social and political agenda.
Ya think?
Joseph contends that a grand jury was never convened to review the evidence behind the charges, because, as he rightly concludes, “Hennepin County’s unlawful charges against Mr. Chauvin were not severe enough for the mob.” Governor Tim Walz instead “referred the case to (Minnesota Attorney General and confirmed anti-white racist) Keith Ellison, who signed and e-filed a second unfounded complaint against Derek Chauvin that included the murder charge.”
Is anyone surprised that they did everything possible to cut corners to destroy Chauvin, and justice be damned? Not me.
Ethics Alarms 
The medical consensus is not split. The argument that drugs or panic alone killed Floyd exists almost entirely in political media and opinion commentary, rather than in peer-reviewed medical journals or forensic pathology standards. Pathologists, pulmonologists, and toxicologists agree: the physical restraint and compression applied by the officers caused severe hypoxia and cardiac arrest, making it the definitive primary cause of death.
Dr. Tobin (from whom I have two degrees of professional separation) demonstrated that the physiological restriction was so severe that even a healthy individual without pre-existing heart disease or drugs in their system would have died under identical physical conditions.
Moreover,
Presentation of Fentanyl Overdose: Opioid toxicity depresses the central nervous system, leading to heavy sedation, slow and shallow breathing (hypoventilation), and eventually coma or unresponsiveness.
Observed Behavior: Floyd was conscious, speaking, gasping, and actively attempting to breathe until oxygen deprivation caused him to lose consciousness.
Tolerance: Chronic opioid users regularly survive fentanyl blood concentrations far higher than 11 ng/mL without fatal effects.
Carbon Dioxide Levels: Blood gas analysis taken during resuscitation attempts showed acute oxygen collapse rather than the gradual carbon dioxide buildup typical of an opioid overdose.
There may be legal inadequacies in the prosecution that shouldn’t have happened and perhaps that should be corrected retroactively. But the medical science is a separate issue, one that requires those two pesky brothers: unbiased facts and careful analysis.
Floyd’s death was attributed to multiple causes, meaning that if he hadn’t been sick and full of drugs, he might not have died. He also tested positive for the Wuhan virus, which means, by the criteria used at the time to scare the public, George’s death would have been included in the Death by Covid stats. It’s a wonder the New York Times didn’t include the thug in the “Those We Have Lost” feature. The coroner opined that Chauvin’s actions were likely the primary cause of death, but the ‘eggshell skull” principle (“You take your victim as you find him”) applies in civil law, not criminal. The Coronor also attributed Floyd death in part to the flooding of his system with adrenaline because he was resisting arrest. That was his fault, not Chauvin’s. Verdict: obvious reasonable doubt.
Also, the medical verdict was homicide, meaning that Chauvin’s actions killed Floyd as the main causation.
Jack, the legal standard for causation in homicide cases in Minnesota is that the prosecution must show the defendant’s actions were a substantial contributing cause. Not the only cause, not the proximate cause, not the primary cause. You may not agree with that standard, but it is the law in Minnesota.
Again, that’s manslaughter, not first degree murder. Homicide means the death was caused by a person. Under Minnesota Statute § 609.185, first-degree murder is defined as causing the death of a person with premeditation and intent, or during the commission of specific high-risk felonies like sexual assault, kidnapping, or terrorism. It carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. Furthermore, a law enforcement officer has considerable leeway in resisting arrest situations, which this was. If Chauvin using an approved police tactic to subdue a huge perp and the perp died due to that move plus other factors, it still isn’t criminal homicide, and definitely isn’t first degree murder. Right???????
Yeah, I don’t buy the First Degree Murder part, which basically requires you believe Chauvin intended to kill Floyd by holding him prone while waiting for the ambulance, the kind of moustache-twirling villainous plot you see only in bad novels, children’s cartoons, and social-justice activism.
But as I’ve already pointed out, as can be seen in the jury instructions, the presence of other contributing factors doesn’t enter into it. If the prone restraint significantly contributed to death, and its use was unlawful, then it’s some form of homicide, mostly depending on intent and circumstances.
Let me get this back on track—my fault. There was no First Degree Murder charge or conviction. I’m so disgusted by the whole George Floyd fiasco that I didn’t go back and check the facts. Chauvin was convicted of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder (which is manslaughter), and second-degree manslaughter and convicted on all of the charges, which makes no sense, resulting in a 22+1⁄2 sentence. Second degree murder either requires an intentional killing or an unintentional killing committed during the course of a felony. What felony? Chauvin was trying to arrest a big, drugged out per resisting arrest. There’s no way that conviction and prosecution can be spun to justify Chauvin’s conviction.
But he wasn’t charged with First Degree murder.
It’s clear you’ve not seen the entire arrest video. Three officers were actively struggling to get him restrained for several minutes. One circles around the car and decides to pull Floyd in from the opposite door, rather than three pushing from the side. Floyd barrels though the back seat steamrolling over the pulling officer and is back out of the vehicle.
This was drug induced delirious panic suicide by cop.
Maybe! We can only hope that common sense and actual law (which seems rare in MN) prevails.
And now we all know who Knucklehead is.
What do you want to bet that Trump doesn’t pardon the federal conviction when leaving office?
Federal prison is a far better place than state prison. It would be a net harm to Chauvin to get a pardon.
“Maybe This Time”
The tag line for Jurassic Park 13…
Chauvin’s use of prolonged force (after suspect is subdued), knee on the neck, and failing to render aid to a medically distressed detainee, all went against police department / training protocols. If he can get away with doing that to Floyd, which is admittedly a difficult person to have any sympathy for, then with what type of victim do we eventually say “no?” I’m not sure Chauvin deserves a pardon, but I’m in no way a fan of George Floyd.
Irrelevant. He still has a right to due process and a fair trial. He didn’t get one, and he couldn’t get one in Minnesota
You’re confusing moral grievance with legal error. On the evidence: this wasn’t close. Nine-plus minutes of video, MPD’s own chief and use-of-force trainers testifying the restraint violated policy, and the county medical examiner plus independent experts attributing death primarily to mechanical asphyxia, not fentanyl. The jury spoke.
On the legal claims: the “no grand jury” argument is simply wrong on Minnesota law. Rule 17.01 requires grand jury indictment only for offenses carrying mandatory life sentences (first-degree murder).
Venue, sequestration, pretrial publicity, jury instructions, and the juror-misconduct claim were all litigated on direct appeal, addressed in a 50-page Minnesota Court of Appeals opinion, and denied review by the Minnesota Supreme Court and SCOTUS — twice. These got real hearings under the applicable standard (abuse of discretion) and lost.
“Politically motivated” and “legally erroneous” are different claims. You assert the first and treats it as proof of the second. Given the trial record and the repeated appellate review, it’s entirely reasonable for the conviction to stand.
Nothing moral about it. By standards affirmed over and over again in myriad cases, this was not a fair trial by any stretch of the imagination. If you want to stand on the ruling of political court in the case of the Minnesota Supreme Court and a chicken one in the case of SCOTUS, fine, that provides cover. As a matter of law, there was no way for Chauvin to get a fair trial in the Twin Cities. As a matter of law, not sequestering the jury in such a high profile case guaranteed conviction. Was the police dept civilly liable, oh, probably, but there was no mens rea here, and I believe it’s unethical to hold police criminally liable when a perp resisting arrest comes to grief. It is particularly disgusting that the jury who convicted him was bombarded with propaganda declaring Chauvin “racist,” when no evidence showing a racial motive was ever produced, other than the respective colors of the main parties skin.
And a politically motivated prosecution is per se unethical under Minn. Rules of Professional Conduct 3.8. An unethical prosecution is “legally erroneous.”
Thanks. Based on my research, which I will not stake my life on:
You’re applying an intent-to-kill mens rea standard that isn’t an element of either crime charged.
2. Venue change and sequestration are both discretionary calls reviewed for abuse of discretion, not automatic requirements triggered by publicity level. The Court of Appeals didn’t skip that analysis, and found no abuse.
3. A because-of-race element does exist in federal civil rights law, which is the charge Chauvin pled guilty to. So “no racial motive was ever proven” is true of the state trial and false of the case where he admitted guilt.
4. Rule 3.8 requires a prosecutor to have probable cause before charging but nothing about political motivation being per se unethical. Even a genuine ethics violation by a prosecutor doesn’t automatically convert into a legal error that vacates a conviction.
2. This was an extreme case, and to find no abuse of discretion beggars belief. If this wasn’t a case that required sequestration and a neutral venue what would be? As I stated in the earlier post, Chauvin was sacrificed. There’s no other plausible explanation for the trial not being thrown out.
3. There was, again, not only no evidence or racial motive, there was no justification for the civil right violation charge. You’d have to ask Chauvin’s lawyers why he pleased guilty. Presumably because it was his best shot to mi8nimize jail time in a fixed case. But the racial assumption permeated the state case.
4. I will say that the Minn. version of 3.8 is nuts. In my prosecutor ethics course, I was taught that an ethical prosecutor doesn’t bring charges that he isn’t convenced will support a verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. “Probable Cause” is the standard for arrest. The Comment to 8.3 reads: “[1] A prosecutor has the responsibility of a minister of justice and not simply that of an advocate. This responsibility carries with it specific obligations to see that the defendant is accorded procedural justice and that guilt is decided upon the basis of sufficient evidence. Precisely how far the prosecutor is required to go in this direction is a matter of debate and varies in different jurisdictions. Many jurisdictions have adopted the ABA Standards of Criminal Justice Relating to the Prosecution Function, which in turn are the product of prolonged and careful deliberation by lawyers experienced in both criminal prosecution and defense. Applicable law may require other measures by the prosecutor and knowing disregard of those obligations or a systematic abuse of prosecutorial discretion could constitute a violation of Rule 8.4.” What teh hell? The comments are supposed to clarify the rules for each jurisdiction: why is Minnesota’s blathering on about other jurisdictions? No, I don’t think the prosecutors had sufficient evidence, and they didn’t make sure Chauvin got procedural justice. A prosecutor can ask for a change of venue and a sequestered jury, and should, indeed must, if those are necessary for a fair trial…as in this case.
Courts sat juries in Tsarnaev, O.J., etc., without moving the trial or locking up the jury because they relied on what jurors said under oath about their impartiality.
The federal judge was required to evaluate the factual basis before accepting Chauvin’s plea in which he admitted to elements of the crime.
3.8 says “probable cause” — that’s the enforceable standard. A violation wouldn’t void the conviction.
Finally, what the hell was Chauvin thinking when he sat on Floyd for 9 minutes? I don’t think it was necessarily racism, and perhaps he didn’t know how potentially deadly his actions, but he ignored his training and common sense, and now he’s doing hard time. I’ll be very surprised if that changes.
1. OJ’s jury was indeed sequestered, and famously so.
2. Surely you understand the difference between a case where an alleged crime has launched a community-wide riots and outbursts against police in general and the “victim-perp” has been sanctified by a national movement and accolades by national political figures and celebrities and a typical criminal case.
3.”The federal judge was required to evaluate the factual basis before accepting Chauvin’s plea in which he admitted to elements of the crime.” There was no factual basis for the allegation of racism. The charge was that Chauvin violated Floyd’s “civil rights.” He was not convicted of a “hate crime. The basis of the guilty plea was the Minnesota conviction.
4. Hey, I’ve pleaded guilty for clients who wanted to take advantage of a plea deal to lower risks of greater punishment in front of a jury. The judge rubber stamps the recommendation of the prosecutor. “Evaluating the factual basis” simply means reviewing the file; since no defense is put on, it’s pro forma. Come on: I feel like I’m arguing with a bot. The Federal judge’s evidence was Chauvin’s conviction in the state trial.
5. The Justice department that “got” Chauvin was the biased, DEI, due process-shattering Biden Justice Department! There was zero chance, literally zero, that Chauvin could receive a fair trial. You will recall it also piled on with a charge regarding a then five-year old separate incident that Chauvin had to plead guilty to as well.
Crap, I was wrong about O.J.; his jury was sequestered – and those bastards still got it wrong. I should have cited Tsarnaev + the Trump hush-money trial. I watched some OJ trial, and the prosecution also made critical errors. Dan Petrocelli’s book, by the way, was very good. I wish he were the prosector.
Of course the atmosphere surrounding the trial was extreme, and I can understand arguing that Cahill should have moved the trial or sequestered the jury. And the $$$ settlement to Floyd was announced during selection. (I believe Cahill removed a few jurors following that announcement.) There were other “typical” defense complains. But the appeals court upheld all of it. I have no idea what the appeals court could have gotten wrong — that out of my jurisdiction so to speak. I need a law degree and/or a non-internet law clerk.
Chauvin didn’t have to act out of racism, true. But he agreed to facts supporting the federal charges, including a separate 2017 incident involving a 14-year-old. According to my internet research, Chauvin admitted striking the 14-year-old with a flashlight and keeping a knee on him while he was handcuffed and unresisting. That should tell you something about Chauvin (!), and that the federal plea wasn’t just based solely on the MN conviction.
The Biden Justice Department was biased against Chauvin—of course it was. The Biden Justice system is an oxymoron. But that doesn’t mean the facts Chauvin admitted to in his guilty plea were false.
Thanks for this conversation. I’m now more convinced that Chauvin is where he belongs.
Ha. If that is your take-away, then this was a productive, useful discussion!
You are 100% wrong as wrong can be, but at least you’ve thought carefully and critically about it, and really, that’s what’s most important.