Will Derek Chauvin be guilty of any count or completely walk?

I would love to hear the discussions that jury had. I can't help but wonder if anybody, at any time, wondered out loud, "can we afford to find this guy not guilty even if we think he is"? It had to be in the back of their mind but between the video and all the other police testifying against Chauvin, it was easy to see he was toast.


What turned me against Chauvin was time. His attorney did what I thought was an excellent job of going through Chauvin's actions and justifying them with words right out of the training manual. There was nothing illegal about putting his knee to the neck of Floyd. It said so right there in Black and White.


What it didn't say, was how long you could do that.



Remember how Floyd kept saying "I can't breathe" even while sitting upright in the back of the police car for the few seconds he was in the back seat. Then he couldn't breathe while being removed from the police car. A "reasonable" cop at this point has got to be thinking "this guy is just repeating this because be has been conditioned from all the other arrest to keep repeating "I can't breathe" to try and get the cops to stop trying to subdue him".


So after about 16 minutes ( the time from the moment they try to arrest him, till the clock starts ticking on the 9 minutes and 26 seconds on the ground ) of saying I can't breathe before he was ever put on the ground in the prone position with Chauvin on his next, he had played the boy who cried wolf card, too many times. They didn't believe him any more and it cost Floyd his life and Chauvin too.



"If you can talk, you can breathe". The cops said it and the expert witness said it. "If you can talk, you can breathe", but there came a time at about the 8 minute mark or so, that Floyd stopped talking. I thought to myself, if he isn't talking or moving any more, maybe he isn't breathing but Chauvin didn't react to the fact that he stopped talking.


The defense attorney tried to make the case that at that very moment when the expert witness said "right there, that's where Floyd took his last breathe", Chauvin was distracted by a bystander behind him. So much that he reached for his can of Mace and shook it. Someone in the crowd can be heard to say "He's got his Mace out". That was the moment Floyd died according to the expert, while Chauvin was distracted from what was happening to Floyd. This is not meant to relief Chauvin of any responsibility but to highlight why he may not have made the connection between Floyd not talking, to Floyd not breathing.


That's when I came to the conclusion that no matter what was happening at the time, Chauvin should have thought to himself, he isn't talking, maybe he isn't breathing but he didn't.


Then there was the testimony that the EMT's were expected in 3 minutes. That is what they were told. It will be 3 minutes before the EMT's get here. If it had been 3 minutes, Floyd would be alive but it took well over 5 if I remember correctly. So maybe Chauvin was thinking "I won't be on his neck long enough to cause a problem because the EMT's will be here in 3 minutes and he waited and waited and waited.


The cards didn't fall for Chauvin and it cost Floyd his life. There was no way Chauvin wasn't going to pay the price for this. Originally Posted by HedonistForever

above was in response to his post.

Cops are not above the law although the few bad ones like Chauvin think they are. Originally Posted by Lucas McCain

Amen to that. Any cop who breaks their oath is no longer a cop and is just a jackbooted thug.

I think no question Chauvin is guilty of Manslaughter and maybe a lesser 3rd degree but those first two guilty counts were straight up Mob Justice. You were right on all of it. But I disagree completely with the verdict and how the Judge handled the entire thing. The Judge did blush or turn red for a brief moment prior to reading the verdict. May not mean much more than he was surprised. Originally Posted by DTickler

Agreed.

In case no one here has noticed, I generally don't debate facts, unless it is related to science that I understand. I do like to debate logic, or the lack thereof, in reasoning. Especially the lack of consideration on consequences from precedents set.

"Plenty of things are OK if you don't get caught. It's not a war crime if there's no one left to testify against you."

A rather rash statement historically. Originally Posted by reddog1951

Debating a fact would be an oxymoron wouldn't it? There is no debate of an actual fact but so many things these days are called facts that obviously are not. Someone on this board just the other day said that he was only interested in discussing objective facts which means no debate, just agreement between to people who agree you don't debate facts. I'm not here to agree on facts. No fun in that.


I too like to debate logic and reasoning. I call it "matching wits". Like they say on the game show Survivor, "outplay, outwit, outlast".


But that isn't the reason some people are here and that's OK, I'm not here to "demand" that everybody play this the way I do, though I wish there were more that did.


I offered a challenge to Mr. Skeptical. He said there was evidence of systemic racism. I said there wasn't and gave numerous examples of why I thought that. I was looking forward to a debate but as of yet, all I got was "there is no sense in arguing with you" to which I wonder, "then what the fuck are you doing in a political forum"?


Apparently I did make a mistake in my prediction for Chauvin's sentencing. I thought for sure I saw or heard that the most severe penalty could get him life. I was wrong. Not so hard to say.


Here are the three charges Derek Chauvin was found guilty on and the maximum sentences for each :

• Second Degree Murder: 40 years in prison
• Third Degree Murder: 25 years in prison
• Second Degree Manslaughter: 10 years in prison

So I'll change my prediction to "he'll get the max".