The Verdict

I am troubled by the Derek Chauvin verdict, though I will not second guess the jurors.  My concern is that the circus atmosphere of the trial puts our entire justice system at risk.

Let’s review a few facts about the circumstances surrounding and leading up to this trial which took place nearly a year after George Floyd’s death.  During that year we have had a continuing barrage of not just laments over Mr. Floyd’s death, but of Black deaths in general, and especially police shootings of Blacks.  There have been riots not only in Minneapolis, but across the country supportive of Black Lives Matter and Police Reform, Defunding of Police, and allegations of systemic racism in both policing and the justice system. 

The jurors, unless they were in a coma for the past year, had to have been subjected to the repeated assertions by the media that George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin and subjected to showings and re-showings of a short but ugliest portion of the video of the entire somewhat lengthy event and incidents surrounding Mr. Floyd’s death.

The jury for the trial, once selected, were not sequestered though they were cautioned not to listen to or read stories about the Chauvin trial.  Well, these jurors left their homes each day and traveled through streets with protestors and national guardsmen, went through heightened security at the courthouse each day, and traveled home again.  There is a 24-hour news cycle that blasts around us daily.  That news cycle had for the most part already tried and convicted Derick Chauvin of murder.  If those jurors were not aware of the threats of violence surrounding the case they were hearing, then again, they must have been in a coma.

They were not sequestered when new riots broke out over a different police shooting with more assertions of police racism.  They were not sequestered when pig’s blood was smeared on the former home of a Chauvin defense witness.  They were not sequestered when threats were made of riots and worse if the verdict was not guilty.  They were not sequestered when the city settled the Floyd family case for $27 million during the trial with the surrounding narrative that this must mean Chauvin is guilty.  And they were not sequestered when Rep. Waters uttered what was essentially a threat for the rioters to “become even more confrontational” if the jurors did not return a guilty verdict. 

The jurors were sequestered at the end of the trial for their deliberation, so they did not hear the President’s admonition that the evidence was overwhelming, and he prayed they would get the verdict right, nor did they hear the news of his call to the Floyd family to support them.  But by then they had heard enough. 

The jurors had significant but limited knowledge about the events before they became actual jurors.  They swore to render their verdict only on the law and the evidence presented at the trial.  Much new evidence came out at trial that the media had not shared – evidence that might raise reasonable doubts about the narrative.  But was it, after a year of daily hearing the media’s narrative, too late to look at new and contrary evidence objectively?  Was it too late to honestly determine there might be reasonable doubt about that narrative?  We don’t know, and perhaps even the jurors themselves don’t know.

Was the threat of violence to their city, their hometown, even their own homes and their families a factor in the jurors’ deliberations?  We don’t know and they may not really know that either.

And that is the problem.  This trial was turned into some sort of proceeding on the state of social justice in America.  But a trial is not about a concept or a cause.  A trial is about a very specific incident and the facts and law that are exclusively relevant to that incident.  When one tries to make a trial about something else then those involved in that trial’s proceedings do not get justice.  And the irony here is that if you don’t have justice then you can’t have social justice.

We know that the jurors were bombarded with publicity that included information, misinformation, and disinformation about George Floyd and his death for close to a year before the trial began and that the publicity continued to surround them throughout the trial.  We know that they deliberated for only 10 and a half hours which did not provide much time to review three weeks’ worth of evidence and to make sure they were looking only at that evidence and not the year’s publicity. 

We know that despite the complexity of the laws involved and legal interpretations of terms therein, that the jurors asked no questions of the Judge during their 10 and a half hours of deliberation.  We know that it took the jury only 10 and a half hours to elect a foreperson, to review the law and evidence, and render unanimous guilty verdict on 3 counts, all requiring different criteria be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

As I said at the start, I will not second guess the jurors, but it is hard to have the confidence in this verdict that I usually have in jury verdicts.  My experience as a lawyer and a legal observer has generally been that jurors try their best to follow the law and the facts and reach a fair verdict and I will trust that is what the Chauvin jurors did.  But was that possible given the circus that surrounded them for the year prior to and then during this trial?  We will likely never know the definitive answer to that question. 

And that is why this is so troubling.

Because, if you cannot fully trust our legal and especially our jury system, then you cannot trust the law.  And if it even appears that a jury can be swayed by media narrative or by threats of violence then that is what we can look forward to in future litigation.

When we look again at the specific defendant in this trial, there is more to trouble us.  Derek Chauvin is a police officer.  I know that he is entitled to a jury of his peers, and apparently the lawyers and the court were satisfied with the jury, but I don’t know if there was even one police officer on the jury.  I do know that defendants who happen to fall within certain identity groups often demand that their juries consist of members of that same identity group.

The fact that this was the trial that resulted due to actions of a police officer during a criminal stop and detention means that the verdict here will have ramifications that will affect police behavior in the future, especially if there is the possibility or perception that this was not a just verdict.  If police feel that whenever someone is injured during a difficult arrest that they can be tried, possibly unfairly, then they will hold back on some actions that are necessary for them to do their job and keep the people of their jurisdictions safe.  This does not serve any of us well.

The ramifications of this verdict will also resonate with the social justice warriors.  We already have assertions that this trial has proven that systemic racism exists.  Just a note:  this was the trial of one police officer for one action; it was not the trial of whether or not systemic racism exists.  Yet apparently those calling for remaking or removal of police generally, see this verdict as a hefty bonus to their cause. 

Many believe that their demonstrations, rioting, and threats of violence are what resulted in this verdict.  Even the President suggests that it was the people coming to the streets that gave us this verdict (of which he approves).  Essentially this is a belief that the mob, not justice, won.  President Biden now calls on the country to continue to “listen to the activists” who have protested about police brutality since George Floyd’s death.  

But this was a trial.  It was not a judgement about the message of activists. Activists have their role.  But that role does not include swaying a jury trial.  Indeed, attempts to do that are usually considered to be jury tampering and subject to severe penalties.  Yet when even our President, with his encouragement of following narrative not fact, shows us that he does not understand the separate roles of activist and  juror, then we can certainly expect more demand for mob rule and less respect or support for the rule of law.

There were only 12 jurors at the Derek Chauvin trial, and I was not one of them.  Nor was the media or the President.  I did watch parts of the trial and I am left with some reasonable doubt.  The jurors have told us there is no such doubt and we must respect that verdict.  But no matter how seriously those jurors took their oaths of objectivity and to follow only the law and evidence presented at trial, given the year long circus leading up to and surrounding this trial, I question whether it could ever have been fair.

I will always wonder if Derek Chauvin was truly guilty of the crimes charged or if he was simply the sacrificial lamb that had to be slaughtered to assuage the guilt for the systemic racism that allegedly exists.  But anyone who thinks that with this verdict the anger and violence, the hatred and claims of racism will end is dreaming.  My fear is that this verdict will add to increased belief in and reliance on mob rule while justice and the rule of law become the ultimate victims.