Fogbow

Greg Gutfeld: "I'm glad [Chauvin] was found guilty on all charges, even if he might not be guilty of all charges. I am glad that he is guilty of all charges because I want a verdict that keeps this country from going up in flames." (Note the groans from his Fox News colleagues.)

sugar magnolia wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:05 pm

zekeb wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:00 pm

filly wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 6:57 pm
Save for the fact that he had a weird visage when he was snuffing George Floyd’s life out. I think he’s mentally ill.

Defense never requested a mental evaluation. In hindsight it may not have been a bad idea.

I doubt Chauvin would have agreed to it.

Do we know that he never had one privately?

In any event, what is the actual likelihood that a mental health evaluation would have helped him? As I understand it, Minnesota follows the M’Naughten rule, which requires the defense to show that at the time of the offense he had a mental illness or cognitive impairment, and as a result, labored under such a defect of reason as not to know the nature of the act, or that it was wrong.

That means he either didn’t know what he was doing (he thought he was on a kneeler in his local church rather than on George Floyd’s neck, for example); or he knew he was kneeling in George Floyd’s neck, but didn’t know it was wrong (because the God told him to do it, for example).

I just don’t think the defense could have gotten there. Mentally ill he may be, but I doubt he’s legally insane.

Kendra wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:25 pm

Greg Gutfeld: "I'm glad [Chauvin] was found guilty on all charges, even if he might not be guilty of all charges. I am glad that he is guilty of all charges because I want a verdict that keeps this country from going up in flames." (Note the groans from his Fox News colleagues.)

Coz who cares about due process, amiright?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyl ... story.html

Her motivations were simple enough. You could even call them pure.

“It wasn’t right,” said Darnella Frazier, who was 17 last year when she saw George Floyd pinned under a Minneapolis police officer’s knee. She said that to the jury last month as she testified in the murder trial of that former officer, Derek Chauvin.

No, Darnella, it wasn’t right, a Hennepin County jury agreed on Tuesday, finding Chauvin guilty of second- and third-degree murder as well as second-degree manslaughter.

After so many previous instances in which police officers were acquitted of what looked to many people like murder, this time was different. And it was different, in some significant portion, because of a teenager’s sense of right and wrong.

Call it a moral core.

Maybenaut wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:31 pm

Kendra wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:25 pm

Greg Gutfeld: "I'm glad [Chauvin] was found guilty on all charges, even if he might not be guilty of all charges. I am glad that he is guilty of all charges because I want a verdict that keeps this country from going up in flames." (Note the groans from his Fox News colleagues.)

Coz who cares about due process, amiright?

Even Pirro was shocked at his statement

To read some of the comments here, I could almost get the idea that the defense strategy was to set his client up for a retrial based on an incompetent representation. Does that idea have any legs?

There are almost no mental health diagnoses that would have helped Chauvin. The only disorders that could adequately help would be a dissociative disorder such as schizophrenia or a fugue state, both of which would have been recognized by coworkers before or after Floyd's murder. In fact, certain mental health diagnoses, such a most personality disorders, would have helped the prosecution.

I have routinely asked myself about why no mental health experts were called to testify, and kept coming to the above conclusion.

keith wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:40 pm To read some of the comments here, I could almost get the idea that the defense strategy was to set his client up for a retrial based on an incompetent representation. Does that idea have any legs?

I don't think "incompetent" means a poor job or presentation. I think it means a demonstrably incompetent job by legal standards — ignoring exculpatory evidence, that kind of thing. IANAL.

when drunk girl is the voice of reason...................................................

Maybenaut wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:29 pm I just don’t think the defense could have gotten there. Mentally ill he may be, but I doubt he’s legally insane.

I doubt they would even want to try. 'Legally insane' is in many ways worse than a guilty plea.

keith wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:40 pm To read some of the comments here, I could almost get the idea that the defense strategy was to set his client up for a retrial based on an incompetent representation. Does that idea have any legs?

I don't think so. Nelson had a loser of a case. He couldn't find experts that held up under cross-exam. There are no experts that could adequately support the defense's position.

Purposefully trying to fuck up a case is really unethical. I don't see Nelson as an unethical or lazy attorney.

Besides, a retrial is a crapshoot, and the risks to the defendant are huge.

I wonder where Chauvin planned to hole up if he was acquitted. He'd have to have gone into hiding for a long time.

LM K wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:00 pm I wonder where Chauvin planned to hole up if he was acquitted. He'd have to have gone into hiding for a long time.

I wonder what he thought while he was killing Floyd and what he thought was going to happen. He seems disconnected from reality in some ways. Didn't he have a pattern of bad behavior? And why wasn't that dealt with? Also, it seems whenever trouble comes up with an officer, that officer often has a history. I remember reading about one guy where his city had to settle something like a couple million dollars on various cases of his bad behavior. How can one cop be worth that to protect?

Kendra wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:33 pm

Maybenaut wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:31 pm

Kendra wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:25 pm

Coz who cares about due process, amiright?

Even Pirro was shocked at his statement

That was his way of saying "lefties" and Black Lives Matter would have burned the town to the ground if Chauvin had been found not guilty.

neeneko wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:48 pm

Maybenaut wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:29 pm I just don’t think the defense could have gotten there. Mentally ill he may be, but I doubt he’s legally insane.

I doubt they would even want to try. 'Legally insane' is in many ways worse than a guilty plea.

In case you missed it.

Many of us thought we had turned a corner when Obama was elected president. I remember how I never felt more proud of the United States than I did that night after it became clear that Obama had won the election. Sadly, it didn't take long for the backlash. I totally expect serious and violent backlash. But we cannot let that stop the momentum. It's time to clean up our police departments. Lots and lots of bad apples need to be removed from police departments all across this nation. I love all the people who are threatening that lots of police might resign. Good. The kind that would resign because of accountability are the kind we need to get rid of. So, I say let the resignations begin. They are not going to come soon enough for me.

keith wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:40 pm To read some of the comments here, I could almost get the idea that the defense strategy was to set his client up for a retrial based on an incompetent representation. Does that idea have any legs?

No, but that is the plot of "The Dock Brief" (1962) starring Peter Sellers and Richard Attenborough and written by John ("Horace Rumpole") Mortimer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dock_Brief

Despite the star power the film is not very good. At the very end, when the defendant is acquitted on appeal (under England's then prevailing rules on double jeopardy), the audience is left to wonder if the incompetent barrister (played by Sellers) saw that the only way his client could be acquitted was through his utter incompetence.

LM K wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:00 pm I wonder where Chauvin planned to hole up if he was acquitted. He'd have to have gone into hiding for a long time.

I wonder where they will hole him up after he is sentenced. Strike 1: He's an ex-cop. Strike 2: He killed a black man. There are guys who'd like to get to him for one reason or another.

sterngard friegen wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 6:59 pm Chauvin could only murder George Floyd once. The murder two count will be the sentencing count unless the judge for some reasons grants a new trial.

My wife has been watching the trial constantly on Court TV. She said that the pundits there said that he would be sentenced on the most serious charge, 2nd degree murder.

I wondered how/why they charged him on three different charges for the same act. Then I realized that, if his inevitable appeal is successful, an appeals court might set aside the 2nd degree murder charge, for some reason, leaving the other two in place. Had they only charged him with 2nd degree, he would go free. In that scenario, they still have the 3rd degree and manslaughter charges to sentence him on.

LM K wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:45 pm There are almost no mental health diagnoses that would have helped Chauvin. The only disorders that could adequately help would be a dissociative disorder such as schizophrenia or a fugue state, both of which would have been recognized by coworkers before or after Floyd's murder. In fact, certain mental health diagnoses, such a most personality disorders, would have helped the prosecution.

Basically, yes. A common-ish defense is that the defendant was in some sort of dissociative state; "it was like I was watching a movie of myself." These defenses often fail because of the amount of preparation before, and actions during, tend to show full orientation.

More often, the retained expert examines the defendant and comes to conclusions that will hurt the defense, so that expert never testifies.

pipistrelle wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:47 pm

keith wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:40 pm To read some of the comments here, I could almost get the idea that the defense strategy was to set his client up for a retrial based on an incompetent representation. Does that idea have any legs?

I don't think "incompetent" means a poor job or presentation. I think it means a demonstrably incompetent job by legal standards — ignoring exculpatory evidence, that kind of thing. IANAL.

Yeah; ineffective assistance of counsel doesn't mean C-minus level of representation; it means performing below an objective standard of reasonableness. "I would haven't said 'X'" or "I would have used Dr. A instead of Dr. B" are tactical calls that almost always are subjectively "reasonable."

Too also: there must be a reasonable probability of a better result. It is rare to have a murder recorded; courts have found no reasonable probability of a better result with far less evidence of guilt.

noblepa wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:56 pm I wondered how/why they charged him on three different charges for the same act. Then I realized that, if his inevitable appeal is successful, an appeals court might set aside the 2nd degree murder charge, for some reason, leaving the other two in place. Had they only charged him with 2nd degree, he would go free. In that scenario, they still have the 3rd degree and manslaughter charges to sentence him on.

Charging in the alternative is common. Most defendants want alternative charges, to give the jury a lesser option. All-or-nothing cases are unusual.

And, as you suggested, it works both ways: An appellate court could (for whatever reason) reverse on the second-degree murder charge but otherwise affirm the other charges. It could then be sent back to the trial court for the possibility of a retrial on only the second-degree murder charge.

As for sentencing, as Stern mentioned, one victim means one sentence. Regardless of Minnesota's nomenclature, he'll be sentenced to "only" the second-degree murder count -- after accounting for any applicable sentencing factors. And this is where the Blakely stuff comes in: he waived his right for a jury trial on those factors.

Greg Gutfeld: "I'm glad [Chauvin] was found guilty on all charges, even if he might not be guilty of all charges. I am glad that he is guilty of all charges because I want a verdict that keeps this country from going up in flames." (Note the groans from his Fox News colleagues.)

While I certainly don't want to see the country "go up in flames", that is not a good reason to convict someone.

I believe that Chauvin has been rightly convicted. I, too, was concerned that an acquittal would cause widespread violent protests.

But, in a different scenario, an officer so charged might, in fact, not be guilty, but still cause violent protests upon his acquittal. To convict that person in order to insure domestic peace would be wrong. If he's guilty, convict him. If he's not, acquit him, but don't make him a scapegoat for political expediency.

RVInit wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:38 pm Many of us thought we had turned a corner when Obama was elected president. I remember how I never felt more proud of the United States than I did that night after it became clear that Obama had won the election. Sadly, it didn't take long for the backlash. I totally expect serious and violent backlash. But we cannot let that stop the momentum. It's time to clean up our police departments. Lots and lots of bad apples need to be removed from police departments all across this nation. I love all the people who are threatening that lots of police might resign. Good. The kind that would resign because of accountability are the kind we need to get rid of. So, I say let the resignations begin. They are not going to come soon enough for me.

As I have mentioned previously, I see the racists and white nationalist ideologies as a disease/virus/infection that is in the throughs of dying. What we have been experiencing since Obama is that the disease is seeing its demise and is lashing out, attempting to strike back on its final breaths (take a look at dying organizations/clubs from time to time and see what looks like a resurgence but with nastiness just before it collapses). It is also, in many ways, traveling the stages of grief. They see the end coming and are desperate to hold on to what they think they have known (people like to pick the deadly path because it seems old and comfortable instead of the new that brings them to a new life).

I have been poo-poo'd for this in the past as some see it as racism and hate coming back. Yes, it tries but it has not yet succeeded and with each new attempt, they lose more. Consider:

1. Obama was elected and then re-elected
2. Kamala Harris was elected
3. The Confederate Flag has fallen, even leaving the MS flag
3.5 (ETA) Monuments are falling and the work is afoot to rename bases.
4. The civil rights won during the 60's are generally intact (though eternal vigilance is needed on voting rights especially).
5. Racist acts in public, while on the surprise are looked down at by a vast majority of society
6. Racists are upset about being called racist (it is a social stigma)
7. From the tragedy of George Flloyd and others has come an upswell from a diverse segment of America in support of Black Lives Matters, from people, churches, and even corporations. My own day job has made statements in support of BLM and a diverse population.
8. DONALD TRUMP LOST!!!
9. While they try, the right keeps losing in the LGBT fight.
10. As they did during the Arizona MLK day stupidity, companies side with who they see are the majority of the people (i.e. the most customers) and punish states for their bad behaviors.
11. 15 years ago, would Chauvin even been charged?

Much more work is necessary, but never forget, the march continues to go forward. Freedom and liberty continue to win out over fear and hate. Always remember to stick your head briefly out of the trench, to see all that has been accomplished so far, and then press on.

I assumed that he was found guilty on all charges to lower the risk of overturning the decision of the jury. Judging from the strength of the jurors answering "yes", they wanted to make their decision clearly heard.