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"I think if they come back quick, we got him," said a black man on the street in a television interview.
I think if they come back quickly we will have him.
He was referring to the twelve jurors in the Hennepin County, Minnesota courthouse where Derek Chauvin was on trial - the white cop who kneeled on George Floyd's neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds in May a year before Floyd was dead .
The jury - there are five men, seven women; six whites, four blacks, two people who classified themselves as “multiracial” - it took ten and a half hours to arrive at their verdict. Is that short? As anyone familiar with the American legal system knows, this is breathtakingly short. Because the jury will be instructed once again after they have withdrawn to deliberate. They usually have questions about a process of this magnitude. Often there is at least one juror who is stubborn; In this case, the judge has to use a legal crowbar called “Allen charge” to brutally urge the jury to finally reach a verdict.
This time there were no questions.
Nobody had to ask the jury to do anything.
So it was no surprise when the jury found the defendants guilty on all counts.
Guilty of "second degree murder" in which one person kills another unintentionally.
Guilty of "third degree murder" - this occurs in Minnesota when a person causes the death of another by an "extremely dangerous act", regardless of his life.
Finally, he is also guilty of “second degree manslaughter”, which occurs when someone accepts the death or serious bodily harm of another person through an “unreasonable risk”.
These offenses are: life, 25 years, five to 15 years.
Derek Chauvin will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.
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Anyone who has seen the video in which the policeman Chauvin - his hands casually buried in his pockets - murdered George Floyd, may consider this judgment to be logical or to be expected. After all, the prosecution had called not 45 but 46 witnesses, as their representative Keith Ellison stated in his closing statement; the 46th witness was common sense. Finally, among the witnesses who testified earlier in the trial was a nine-year-old girl who remembered the ambulance paramedics telling Derek Chauvin to let go of his victim. But black Americans remained skeptical until the last moment.
They remembered the 1991 trial of Rodney King in Los Angeles: Back then, the video clearly showed several police officers slapping those on the ground, and the court acquitted them. They were reminiscent of Walter Scott, who was shot in the back by a police officer in 2015 while trying to run away; here, too, no perpetrator was convicted. So black Americans knew anything was possible. That at least a “hung jury” had to be expected - that is, jury who could not agree on a verdict. In this case, Judge Peter Cahill would have had no choice but to declare the trial a failure.
So America held its breath on April 20, 2021. Shops in Minneapolis had boarded up windows and doors because riots were to be expected in the event of an acquittal. George Floyd's family, who were following the outcome of the trial in a hotel, had called for non-violence. Helicopters circled over the city, the National Guard was detached. And of course the judge had instructed the jury that none of this should impress them. It was up to them to decide whether they believed Derek Chauvin's guilt "beyond reasonable doubt" to be proven. That was all. (The judge then sets the sentence.) When the verdict was pronounced in Minneapolis shortly after 6:00 p.m. local time, the whole of America breathed a sigh of relief. Cheers broke out in the streets in front of the court.Even in distant New York, screams of relief, perhaps joy, could be heard from open windows.
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Maybe this time the measure was just full.
While the trial was still on April 11th, 20-year-old Black Daunte Wright was shot dead in Minneapolis by a white policewoman who later said she had mistaken her taser for her pistol.
Shortly before, the images of the arrest of Caron Nazario had shaken the nation - a black lieutenant in uniform who was forced to the ground by police officers with guns drawn and loud roars.
Perhaps it is the new thing that this time not only black but also white Americans were shocked - and by no means only leftists.
David French, a Christian, Conservative columnist, tweeted just one sentence after the verdict was pronounced: “May justice help heal this land.” May justice help heal this land.
Perhaps the decisive factor in the verdict was that the “thin blue line” didn't hold up this time. American police officers can often rely on other witnesses in blue uniforms in court proceedings - no one wants to be the “fellow pig” who turns against his comrades. But in the trial of Derek Chauvin, several police officers testified that he had acted unprofessionally and criminally, including a former Minneapolis police chief. Ultimately, it is pointless to speculate about it. Juries advise in secret, their consultation room is a "black box" for outsiders. What is important is that on April 20, 2021, seven women and five men sent a man to prison who kneeled on someone else's neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds because he had power over him.
Is everything going to be okay now? Here you will hear significantly more skeptical words from black Americans than from whites. Police unions still have a great deal of power in the United States - more power than they should be. A Supreme Court ruling continues to give police officers "limited immunity" - that is, it is impossible to hold them civilly accountable unless a precedent can be cited that precisely applies to their case. And for many white police officers, black Americans are still under general suspicion, so any traffic control can escalate into a fatal incident. No, it is by no means guaranteed that black people in America will experience police officers as friends and helpers in the future.Nevertheless, the spontaneous joyful dances on the streets were justified. May justice help heal this land.