Seriously: No change of venue…no jury sequestration…the city of Minneapolis handing a drug-crazed, career criminal’s family $27M (what, had city authorities consulted a clairvoyant who convinced them Floyd was going to pick a winning lottery ticket?!?) in the midst of jury selection…Mad Maxine…the Minneapolis StarTribune publishing bios of the jurors which included clues even Inspector Clouseau could follow…a scant 11 hours of deliberation…and not even a scintilla of reasonable doubt regarding the fatal levels of fentanyl and methamphetamine in Floyd’s system?!?
Add to that the fact jurors were undoubtedly aware of the threats, real and implied, against them should they not reach what 46* assured us was the “right” verdict…
…and they all lived in and about Minneapolis. Only in the Bizarro World of Dimocratic Socialism could such a trial be considered fair. And we’re greatly disappointed Tim Scott, who, it was just announced, will deliver the GOP response to whatever The Groper can glean from his teleprompter, lacked either the insight or courage to call it what it was.
In a related item courtesy of NRO, Andy McCarthy turns his usual insightful analysis on the question…
“…Nevertheless, there is a serious question about whether Derek Chauvin got a fair trial. That is a separate question from whether the evidence was compelling. And to be sure, the stronger the evidence, the harder it is to show that due process was denied. A reviewing court is apt to conclude that even exemplary due process would not have made a difference.
That said, as soon as jury deliberations got underway, Cahill himself conceded that the prejudicial publicity against Chauvin, exacerbated by Congresswoman Maxine Waters’s inflammatory rhetoric over the weekend, create[d] a significant appellate issue.
To make a record that the jury was not overwhelmed by publicity and intimidation, it would have been best for the jurors to deliberate for a few days — there was, after all, a mountain of evidence to sift through — and perhaps send some notes to the court. A split verdict (e.g., guilty on felony murder and manslaughter, but not guilty on depraved-indifference murder) also could have insulated the jury from any such claims. I am not saying the jury should have done that for appearances’ sake; I am saying that, had they done that, it would have been a bulletproof demonstration that the jurors made a discriminating appraisal of the evidence, and that they decided the case with exacting fidelity to Judge Cahill’s instructions on the law.
The fact that the deliberations were so short and, it would appear, indicative of sparse scrutiny of a complex trial record does not necessarily mean Chauvin was denied due process. But for Chauvin to have any chance of showing that he was denied due process, what had to happen has happened: The deliberations lend themselves to the claim that the jury did not see acquittal as an option.
This is a case in which the defendant plausibly argued from the start that he could not get a fair trial in Hennepin County. The judge declined to change venue, opining that the court could ensure a fair trial by an exacting jury-selection process. Yet, in the middle of that process, Minneapolis, which was obligated to ensure due process, publicized its decision to pay the Floyd family $27 million to settle a wrongful-death civil-rights suit. The city government could have done that at any time; it deliberately chose to do it as the judge was trying to ensure an unbiased jury. As a result, two jurors had to be removed because they admitted to being influenced by the settlement.
Throughout the trial, the publicity continued to be intense. There was also significant coverage of the jurors. They weren’t identified by name and address, but enough information was published that their families had to know it would not take a very enterprising snoop to track them down.
Then, just as the presentation of evidence was about to end, the tragic accidental killing of Daunte Wright by a police officer occurred in Brooklyn Center. That’s a suburb of Minneapolis, just ten miles from the courthouse. Some jurors in Chauvin’s trial either resided or had ties there.
Defense counsel Eric Nelson rightly pleaded with the judge to sequester the jury. There would have been no downside to doing it. The jury would have been sequestered anyway, when deliberations started. The court could have swiftly proceeded into summations, jury charge, and deliberations.
Instead, the judge gave the jury a long weekend at home, allowing counsel the day off on Friday to prepare for summations, precisely because the case featured complex evidence — complicated medical testimony and voluminous evidence on police procedures, particularly use-of-force protocols. As Nelson predicted, the judge’s denial of sequestration meant the jurors would be marinated for the crucial days right before deliberations in intense publicity, street violence, and unhinged demands that Chauvin be convicted of murder, no matter what.
That was the powder keg into which Waters and, hours before the verdict, President Biden lobbed their rhetorical bombs — though the president’s remarks were made after the jury already began deliberating behind closed doors, unlike Waters’s.
The guilty verdicts against Chauvin are rational and defensible. Many will zealously claim that the evidence is overwhelming, though I think that overstates matters on the issue of intent. The likelihood, in any event, is that Derek Chauvin’s convictions and the severe sentence that will be imposed on him in a few weeks will be upheld on appeal.
But remember: It was only 24 hours ago when commentators were observing, in the wake of Waters’s inflammatory remarks, that there was reason to fear the jury would peremptorily convict Chauvin without carefully considering the record — so fraught with intimidation and prejudice had the atmosphere become.
Then this afternoon, the jury returned a stunningly quick verdict, after asking no questions about the complex evidentiary record: Guilty on all counts.“
Hell’s bells, the last Republican mayor of Minneapolis was Richard Erdall, who occupied the office for one day back on December 31, 1973, and the entire current city council is further to the left than the old the Politburo.
Yet they still seek to blame others…
…for problems of their own creation!
Here’s the juice: As Daniel Francis recently observed, there is no love in their language, none. They can’t persuade because their positions are indefensible. Thus they’re not looking to convert, rather they’re seeking to subdue and destroy, because they hate you. And they’re as evil and obsessed as Captain Redlegs, firm in their twisted belief theirs is a holy mission:
An unfortunate truth against which we find solace in the words of Christ Himself in John 15:18: “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”
Moving on, contrary to what Socialists would have you believe, mathematics is objective, hence Tucker offers some inescapable, incontrovertible math:
As for the latest police shooting to be completely misrepresented in the press, sorry, but, the terminology of the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati to the contrary notwithstanding, does what Brandon Tatum describes in the video which follows look lie a teen-age girl BRANDISHING a knife? The video is a bit long, but well worth the time given the understanding it provides about what actually went down. Plus, given the triple warnings as to its content, it may not be available for long.
In a recent edition of The Five, Jesse Watters compiled the usual reactions of The Left to Ma’kia Bryant attempting to kill the other girl of color in pink:
Gee, Jen…perhaps Black girls and boys experience more frequent encounters with law enforcement because Black girls and boys commit a greatly disproportionate share of our nation’s crimes?!? Or as Tucker went on to note today:
For more on the consequences of what that clueless imbecile on CNN termed a “schoolyard fight”, later in the same segment, Dagen McDowell recounted what happens when police aren’t around to serve and protect:
Any chance…any chance at all…46* or Kommielaa will be calling up Nyaira Givens’s family to offer condolences on the death of their 13-year-old daughter in “what was essentially a teenage fight, a schoolyard fight”?
Since we’re on the subject of those who’ve totally taken leave of their senses, courtesy of NRO, Michael Brendan Dougherty insightfully suggests…
“Not a single journalist at America’s paper of record asked anyone with first-hand knowledge whether the late Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer, was bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher before they reported it. They took the word of “law enforcement officials.”
And what is that “new information”? The D.C. medical examiner now says that Sicknick showed no signs of internal or external injury, and that he died after suffering two strokes. People are free to speculate that the stress of the Capitol riot may have contributed to his strokes. That seems plausible. But why did this take months to figure out?Why did people keep repeating that Sicknick had been bludgeoned to death for so long, despite the fact that there was enough reporting in the first two days after the riots to cast doubts on the story?
Normal people have started to use the word “narrative” the way only journalists and advertising executives used to use it. “The media is pushing a narrative,” they say. “If it doesn’t fit the narrative, it will be ignored.”
This should trouble people in the news business. And it should probably trouble everyone else, too…”
Speaking of things which should concern everyone, there’s the latest attempt by 46* to snatch defeat at the hands of the Mad Mullahs from the victory The Donald had almost won, as the WSJ records…
If Derek Chauvin had similarly removed his knee from his opponent’s throat, he’d be a free man today…though Floyd would likely still be dead. Not to mention Floyd hadn’t repeatedly referred to Chauvin as “The Great Satan”, and endlessly repeated “Death to Derek”.
Then there’s these seven stories specially selected for inquiring Conservative minds:
That Wretched subsequently lied about traveling to Florida is simply sauce for the goose. Seems like only yesterday Wretched was angling for Kommielaa’s slot.
(3). In what is surely almost as big a surprise as Kommielaa cackling inappropriately or AOC uttering some random inanity, a D.C. statehood bill passed the House in a party-line vote. Please don’t ever try to convince us there are any more “moderate” Dimocrats, as the term’s on a par with “kinda pregnant”.
(5). The Journal‘s Kim Strassel says…in so many words…”New Hampshire Democrat Bill Gardner, the longest-serving secretary of state in U.S. history, a literal institution famous for his apolitical commitment to the Granite State’s constitution and its first-in-the-nation primary, not only vehemently opposes his party’s H.R.1 bill, which would federally impose procedures such as early and absentee voting on the states, but has incontrovertible evidence the narrative behind it is a crock.”
(6). NRO‘s David Harsanyi highlights 46*’s climate denialism. The man would sacrifice the world to achieve even undying infamy.
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Finally, we’ll call it a week with these from Jeff Foutch…
…and our own Major Jon:
Magoo
Video of the Day
Tucker and Mark Steyn highlight how Socialists have literally enshrined irrationality.
Tales of The Darkside
As Clarence Thomas, “She Turned Me Into A” Newt Gingrich and the inestimably brilliant Thomas Sowell recount, The Groper’s ALWAYS BEEN a lying, hypocritical doofus…which doesn’t say much for the fools who voted for him.
On the Lighter Side
If you think MLB has gone totally tone deaf, you’re RIGHT, as this clip from a recent White Sox home game demonstrates. As the lady said, that’s awfully loud booing from a nearly vacant stadium.
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